California sounds a lot like Illinois...

July 11, 2019
In California, don't call them 'public servants'; call them 'the government gang'

By Thomas Lifson

With its monopoly on the legitimate use of force, government gets its way. Just as gangsters do — with the ever-present knowledge that non-compliance will be met by people ready to use force if necessary. The purported difference between governments and gangsters is that the former are supposed to be subject to the rule of law and operating "in the public interest," while the latter are out only to enrich themselves.

But in California's state government, one-party control and the lack of media scrutiny and public attention has led to the capture of control over tax revenues by so-called "public servants." That's government employee unions, which donate heavily to the ruling party, the Democrats. The result is plunder of tax revenues on an unimaginable scale, creating a ruling class of wealthy people (the value of a six-figure pension for an employee who retires after twenty years of employment is millions of dollars), while starving the actual delivery of services to the taxpayers who face jail if they don't cough up what is demanded of them.

As a Californian of more than three decades, I have watched the highways deteriorate, with no new construction of freeways (or reservoirs, for that matter) while the population soared. I have watched the schools go from bad to horrendous. Meanwhile, taxes have soared to levels that are driving out middle-class taxpayers in very large numbers. The rest of us who are not members of the government gang watch as the gang members get rich. How rich? Even I was shocked by the data reported by Steven Greenhut in The American Spectator:

Hundreds of California government workers earn more than $500,000 a year — and that's just the tip of the public-employee compensation iceberg. (snip)

...a new report from the Orange County Register's Teri Sforza hints at why these agencies never have enough money to do their jobs. Based on data from the state controller's office, she found that "More than 100 city and county workers earned total compensation exceeding a half-million dollars in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties last year." One need only look at the Transparent California database to see that this is no aberration.

One Orange County city, Placentia, decided recently to exit its contract with the Orange County Fire Authority and start its own fire department as a way to gain control of spiraling compensation costs. No wonder. We see page after page of OCFA employees earning total compensation of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. The top earner received $534,000 in total pay and benefits — nearly five times the base salary of $117,000 a year. This is no aberration. Pull the data from any agency and you'll be shocked by the pay levels.

The average California firefighter at the county and city level earns nearly $200,000 a year in total compensation for a minimal work week (and they're paid while sleeping). State-level firefighters earn close to $150,000. Police sergeants, city managers, you name it — they often earn $300,000 or more in pay and benefit packages. Those numbers include only the funded portion of the equation. California has hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded pension and retiree-medical costs — shortfalls that ultimately must be paid for by hard-pressed taxpayers.

In fact, total compensation packages, including benefits such as early retirement and lifetime medical care, add from one third to one half of the salary, meaning the average firefighter receives at least $300,000 a year.

Some employees have compensation levels soaring over $1 million in one year, costs that typically reflect those ridiculous DROP programs (Defined Retirement Option Plans). Compensation packages are so generous and retirement ages so low (age 50 for public-safety employees; 55 for most others) that these employees have no incentive to keep working once they hit retirement age. But many want to keep working, and their agencies need their labor. So employees double-dip by receiving their retirement and their full pay, which they get in a lump sum when they really do retire.

There is much more to read in Greenhut's article. The conclusion is clear to me. California politicians are conspiring with public-sector employees to run the government for their own benefit, not to serve the public. It's all legal, because the state Legislature passes and the governor signs the legislation taking tax revenues and giving them to an elite of favored public servants masters, who put their own interests ahead of the people who pay their salaries.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.co...g.html#ixzz5tOJ9NgvK

My Dad was a Deputy Sheriff @ 91 yrs old he makes more money with his pension than I do working. He's been retired since 1985.

In 2013 they changed the retirement age for new hires to 57 and lowered the retirement wage percentage. I know a few cops who were completely mentally and physically healthy when they retired, but the majority are pretty banged up when they’re done. Personally I’d rather not have a 56 year old patrol guy limp up to my door if I call 911.

It’s easy to go through the Transparent California site and find admins or chiefs who are gaming the system. Most of the patrol level guys in there are working their asses off to earn the salaries they do. California is retardedly expensive to live in. Trying to pay cops and firefighters $20/hr would result in an empty agency that only gets applications from guys who can’t pass a background, can’t pass the academy, or who have been fired from somewhere else.

Ah, it brings the days of Gray Davis swimming back to mind, doesn't it? I've said it before, I'll say it again - the first step for Californians to regain control over their own fates will necessarily be to smash the public unions and never let them form again.

There are some public safety folks in the higher admin billets that should probably be tarred and feathered, but I see the politicians as a much bigger problem. If they did their jobs the public safety admins wouldn’t be a problem. It isn’t like the PS folks vote their own raises.

No, but boy do they ever have one hell of a machine to lobby for them!

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Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
No, but boy do they ever have one hell of a machine to lobby for them!

Yes. There is a part of me that thinks that it should be illegal for public employees to unionize. The problem is that it is often not an adversarial relationship, but rather one where union dues fund political contributions to the folks who will give away the store to the unionized employees. Instead of working against each other to do the best for their side they are working together to screw the taxpayer.

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they often earn $300,000 or more in pay and benefit packages.

Ok I am no fan of Commifornia and the liberal bullshit there, but... making $150K in parts of California is like making $40k in the rest of the country.

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Ok I am no fan of Commifornia and the liberal bullshit there, but... making $150K in parts of California is like making $40k in the rest of the country.

Yeah... and why is that?
Could it have anything to do with the high taxes and the high (but mostly unseen) costs of excessive regulation?

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Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Ok I am no fan of Commifornia and the liberal bullshit there, but... making $150K in parts of California is like making $40k in the rest of the country.

Yeah... and why is that?
Could it have anything to do with the high taxes and the high (but mostly unseen) costs of excessive regulation?

That is part of it, a big part of it. Additionally, there are areas (Silly Valley for one) where the housing cost is just insane. The tech jobs are there, the ones with the chance of stock option riches, and given the choice of spending over a million dollars for a modest house near their job or driving two hours each way daily to commute from the San Joaquin Valley, some folk choose to pay those insane housing prices. I don’t know how folks with less lucrative jobs afford to live there.