Grand Jury Report 2009: "Reversing city employee cost"

Report to San Mateo county cities, June 4,2009.  This Report is now 2 1/2 year old.  San Mateo county cities are likely making changes.  Anyone have an update from Pacifica? 

City Hall funded

South San Francisco Staff Report, 8/26/09, PDF, 36 pages. San Mateo County Grand Jury Report "Controlling the trajectory of employee costs", June 4, 2009.  Motion to approve.

The following are eight (8) information Tables from the Report you may be interested in viewing:

Table 1, page 7.  "Examples of lifetime retirement pensions, not including health care benefits or annual COLAs."  Note: Pensions are based upon the last year of work salary, whereas the private sector social security formula is 40% of earned income based upon a lifetime of work, tied to a much older age.
 

 Table 2, page 8. 10, 20, 30 years worked salary examples,  includes formula percentage, and annual retirement pension examples. A city employee is vested following 3 years of employment..

Table 3, page 9. List of San Mateo county cities. Their retirement formulas, including safety* and regular employees.pensions. These pensions are based upon the last year of work, or the last 3 years of work.

Table 4, page 10. Cities that have changed retirement formulas for new hires. Three (3) only. These include Belmont, Brisbane, San Carlos.

Table 8, page 12.  Comparison of city population with the size of city staff size.  City staff numbers do not include part-time or seasonal workers, 2008).

Table 7, page 17. City paid absentee days per year:  Example Pacifica, 11 vacation days, 11 holidays, 2 personal days. Total allowed days per year: 4 weeks, 4 days.  Plus 2 weeks, 2 days if sick.   .

Table 6, page 20.  City percentage contribution paid for retirement to CalPERS and OPEBs.  Note: The Pacifica safety employee* percentage seems high. 

Table 5, page 22.  Other post-employment benefits as known. 

* Safety employees are police and firefighters.

Posted by Kathy Meeh