One crisis at a time, please – is that too much to ask?
Some consolation for small business owners during the current economic crisis has been the positive impact the 2004 bipartisan workers’ compensation reforms have had on lowering insurance costs. After all, countless small businesses wouldn’t even be here to experience the worst recession in decades if Gov. Schwarzenegger hadn’t championed the passage of Senate Bill 899. As I travel throughout the state meeting with small business owners, they regularly cite the immense savings they’ve witnessed from these historic reforms – some savings in the thousands of dollars, but many saving upwards of ten thousand dollars or more. This is money they’ve been able to reinvest in employees, benefits and other efforts to promote and grow their small businesses.
The savings generated by those reforms – an average of 64 percent drop in insurance costs since 2003 – today could very well be the difference that’s keeping a small business afloat.
That’s why a recent column by The Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters should send shivers down every employer’s spine. A review panel known as the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) has gutted a major provision of the 2004 reforms that instituted a more objective and equitable system for providing permanently injured workers with cash benefits.
Antonio Agonistes
Watching Antonio Villaraigosa whirling his way to the center of the political universe is like watching him work a room. His sensors are out for every quiver, and twitter, coming from the crowd. He’s a master of risk, survival, and sometime success. And his latest iteration is rapidly evolving into a virtuoso display of staying ahead of the curve.
When you get 55% of 15% of the vote that bothered to turn out, you can bet it’s the hard-core complainers who are voting to settle a score with someone, anyone. Among that crowd, 55% should be considered a landslide.
The public is in such a panic at the moment that there is no time to focus on policy or politicians. It’s all about not being one of the pieces of falling debris when the whole thing comes tumbling down.
Fix the Public Sector Retirement System!
For several years I’ve warned that we can’t afford pension enhancements that have been granted to California’s state and local government workers since 1999. That’s when the Legislature passed SB 400 to increase benefits and lower retirement ages for state workers and permitted local agencies to do the same. Cities, counties, water districts, fire districts – all — have felt pressure to ramp up benefits to keep employees from bolting to other districts.
To bring sanity back to government employee compensation, the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility proposes uniform retirement benefits for NEW workers that closely resemble defined benefits earned by federal workers. Not only would uniform benefits stop the bidding wars, we estimate California’s governments will save at least $500 billion in pension costs over the next 30 years. We felt that would be more than enough to keep budgets balanced.
We were wrong.