U.S. Cities Strangled by Cost of Ballooning Pensions (outrage in Beverly Hills)

foxnews ^ | Published August 25, 2011 | By Leah Krakinowski

[dennisw]

When Beverly Hills residents found out that many of their city’s 950 municipal and public safety employees were earning stunning salaries, 13 weeks of paid vacation, unlimited overtime and other tax-free retirement benefits, taxpayers were outraged and city officials rushed into closed-door sessions to figure out what to do.

These revelations, exposed through the efforts of the city’s hometown newspaper, The Beverly Hills Courier, unmasked an even deeper problem: many California cities, and likely other municipalities across the U.S., are being strangled by the cost of ballooning pension benefits they can no longer afford.

“What we have now is a grab bag of incredible benefits for public employees that are totally detached from what’s been happening in the private sector, and it’s neither fair nor sustainable,” said John Mirisch, a first-term Beverly Hills council member elected in 2009. “When the city was rolling in dough, officials may have thought the salary and pension structure was sustainable, but certainly, it was not fair.”

In Beverly Hills, city employees do not contribute to their own retirement pensions; the city pays everything with half of that contribution being largely tax-free, according to the Beverly Hills Pension Task Force headed by City Treasurer Elliot Finkel, as reported in the Courier. The Task Force presented its findings at a recent city council meeting.

When a city employee retires, he or she is guaranteed a fixed amount that increases every year. If CalPERS funding falls short, taxpayers make up the difference.

[No Left Turn]

Hey you couples making $250K/year pay your fair share of my multi-million dollar union retirement.

[No Left Turn]

Hey you couples making $250K/year pay your fair share of my multi-million dollar union retirement.

[dennisw]

Alfred R. Villalobos-—

You post was the visible part of his bribery of CALPERS officials who are not Gov’t workers of course. They merely administer the pension fund of California Gov’t workers. Undoubtedly cash payments (kickbacks, bribes) were deposited into Mexican and other offshore banks which are hard to trace unless a real forensic accounting investigation is done of Alfred R. Villalobos and his company

[Liz]

As the CIA says-—crooks always leave a paper trail.

[haroldeveryman]

Government unions are doing to the USA what the auto workers unions did to Detroit.

[LibertarianInExile]

“Only problem is that you can’t make them stay there after they’ve dirtied the nest. They just pack up and leave for the next place, rinse and repeat. The ones that are screwed are the business owner and long time residents that can’t easily pack up and head for a better place. Eventually these cities will spiral down the drain as taxes are raised to pay for the benefits of retirees people will move out thus lowering the tax base requiring further tax increase, rinse, repeat until no one is left to pay for them. That day can’t come too soon enough for me. Actually the day I move can’t come too soon for me.”

What TIL said BTTT. I saw it in Arizona, Florida, Virginia and Texas. They ruin their own states and move elsewhere (Cali to AZ and TX, Maryland and DC to VA, and NY/PA/NJ to Florida). If I had a dollar every time I heard the plaintive whine of the NY imports in Florida...”WHY OH WHY don’t they have any good DELIS down here!?!”

The one thing they won’t do, thank God, is accept new income taxes. The leftist imports might spend everyone else blind, but they’ll never have their income taxed again.