Posted on 04/22/2012 3:37:57 PM PDT by neverdem
San Diegos Carl DeMaio puts pension reform center stageand himself in union crosshairs.
In 1978, Howard Jarvis launched the U.S. anti-tax movement in California with Proposition 13, which capped annual increases in property taxes and kept people from being forced from their homes during real-estate bubbles. A generation later, the Golden State could be on the brink of launching another populist movement, one driven by anger over government compensation practices. A key battleground is San Diego. In June, voters will decide on Proposition B, the Comprehensive Pension Reform Initiative. It would end defined-benefit pensions for all new city hires except for police officers, instead providing pensions similar to 401(k)s. It would prevent pay sweeteners from being added to base salary when calculating pensions, and it would require city workers to pay a bigger share of their pension costs. Finally, Prop. B would mandate a five-year salary freeze.
Prop. Bs chief author is San Diego city councilman Carl DeMaio, a Republican former management consultant and leading candidate for mayor. DeMaio, 37, doesnt just want to end costly defined-benefit pensions for public employees, a position he shares with former Republican and newly Independent Nathan Fletcher, one of his rivals in the race. Hes also a vigorous advocate of managed competition, in which public-employee groups bid against private providers on the provision of government services. San Diegos version of managed competition—which DeMaio would like to expand upon—so far has driven down the cost of municipal fleet maintenance, street sweeping, and printing. Managed comp carries the promise of extending to government—at last—the productivity revolution that has transformed the private sector over the past 30 years. Even with total U.S. employment at historically low levels, the gross domestic product has never been higher. Its been nearly a decade since the McKinsey consulting group reported that the opportunity to improve government productivity is huge . . . [with] three classic management tools . . . organizational redesign, strategic procurement and operational redesign.
Nor does DeMaios reform agenda stop there. Politicians often talk of tying government pay more closely to performance, starting with teachers. DeMaio, a Georgetown University graduate, wants to take the performance emphasis further and end the standard government pay practice in which most public employees receive automatic, annual step wage increases solely for accumulating years on the job. Many California school districts, including San Diegos, now spend more than 90 percent of their operating budgets on compensation. Automatic raises also are a driving force behind the maddening practice of government baseline budgeting, in which taxpayers are told that every agencys budget must go up by 6 percent or 8 percent each year, or else the agencys budget is being cut. Instead of automatic salary increases based on time served, we should have targeted increases based on performance achieved, DeMaio says.
Defenders of so-called step raises insist that the practice is necessary to stem employee turnover that would hinder government performance—a dubious argument. With the exception of law enforcement and some niche categories, no evidence exists of substantial market demand in any area of public employment. Public-sector compensation is so much higher than private-sector pay because of pay practices—including automatic raises negotiated by bureaucrats who often stand to benefit from the policies—and because of the political clout of public-employee unions.
If DeMaio has his way, these practices would end—first in his scenic city on the coast and then across California. The need for radical reform has never been clearer. The working-class city of Bell in Los Angeles County made headlines in 2010 when the Los Angeles Times uncovered how the citys treasury had been looted by a handful of public employees who paid themselves enormous salaries. In an e-mail exchange with DeMaio, I suggested it was appropriate for Californians to think, We are all Bell—because government compensation practices that amount to legal looting are so widespread. DeMaio agreed. California used to be the envy of the nation. People used to move to California for a second chance on life. Today California itself needs a second chance, DeMaio wrote. Thats exactly why Im pursuing the reforms here in San Diego, so we can provide a model for how to fix the problems and get that second chance.
DeMaios effort faces ferocious resistance. California is so beholden to union power that the head of the state Democratic Party actually endorsed a policy under which students suffering epileptic seizures couldnt receive life-saving medicine unless union nurses dispensed it. From the unions perspective, DeMaio must be stopped. DeMaio and supporters gathered the signatures to place Prop. B on the June city ballot only after overcoming opposition efforts to intimidate signature-gatherers, including radio commercials warning that signing petitions would lead to identity theft. DeMaio, who is gay, also has faced baiting over his sexual orientation (a rich irony in gay-friendly California).
The union-allied state Public Employment Relations Board tried and failed to keep the ballot measure from being voted on; it vows to challenge its implementation if approved. The board contends that the initiative is an end run around legally mandated collective bargaining because current San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders was involved in crafting the measures language. But as San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith noted in February, Never in the history of California has there ever been a requirement to negotiate with labor unions over terms of a citizens initiative placed on the ballot by voter signatures. Plainly, the San Diego pension-reform effort has Californias union leadership worried. Whether Carl DeMaio becomes a twenty-first-century version of Howard Jarvis remains to be seen—but for now, in the Golden State, the young Republican has become the unions Public Enemy Number One.
IMHO, this will be interesting.
Actually, to prevent a collapse of the U.S. these steps need to be taken by every governmental agency at every level.
Wisconsin deja vu.
DeMaio has the fiscal conservative part down pat...he also is a butt pirate who has his private part down Pat.
Mayhap he will undo the damage done by Wilson and crew.
Hinder government performance?
What bull cheet.
Government and their employees at every level have failed in everything they do. They can't balance simple budgets, they won't stop spending and raising taxes, they're over paid, and their lottery style retirement pensions are choking the tax payers off.
The first thing they need to do is get rid of government employee unions, who's members now outnumber private sector unions, then reduce the size of government at every level. All substantial cuts to their bloated obscene retirement pensions need to include those already retired.
It's totally out of control.
This should have been done years ago.
Now were all working FOR these corrupt, over paid, "Public servants".
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