Author: Jon Coupal

The names of San Diego County public employees retiring with six-figure pensions are a matter public record, according to a court ruling in a case brought by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association with amicus briefs filed by the Small Business Action Committee and a number of newspapers.

The 4th District Court of Appeal held, in a published decision that applies statewide, that public employee retirement systems must disclose the names and pension amounts of retired public employees.

This is a significant victory, and a vindication. Even when we have won lawsuits, retirement agencies across the state of California have refused to release their data unless under the threat of lawsuit. Today’s published appellate precedent settles this issue once and for all.

The decision is significant because it requires for the first time that the worksheet of how their pension amounts was calculated must be made public. The worksheet reveals details that explain how some public employees are able to retire with pensions significantly higher than the salaries they earned while employed.

It was television that grabbed the viewer by the throat and wouldn’t let go.

Here is how the Los Angeles Times described it:

The dramatic, 30-second ad depicts a woman cowering in her bedroom as she desperately dials 911 and tells an emergency operator that someone has broken into her home. Holding her terrified little daughter, she pleads: “We’re alone here. Please, send someone.”

As a gloved intruder makes his way up the stairs to her bedroom, she becomes increasingly frantic. “You don’t understand,” she tells the operator. “He’s here right now.”

The commercial ends with the woman screaming, “No! No! No!” The sound of a heart beating is heard and then a dial tone.

California’s most powerful public employee union, the California Teachers Association (CTA), has budgeted $1 million for a May campaign to browbeat and coerce lawmakers and taxpayers into providing more money, through higher taxes, for teachers.

The action items proposed by the CTA range from the silly — convincing the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream company to add a labor-union flavor to their line — to the outright threatening — demonstrations that could create major traffic jams in towns and cities.

Apparently, the union representing the second highest paid teachers in the nation – New York pays several hundred dollars a year more – thinks nothing of creating potentially dangerous traffic hazards and making thousands of those who still have jobs in California, late for work.

If you can afford a 19 percent increase in your electric bill, and are reading this column in a newspaper, you can move on to the sports section. The following will not be of interest to you.

However, if you are a low income, fixed income or even a middle class Californian, you are under assault from Sacramento. Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, has persuaded his colleagues to approve his bill to make energy even more expensive. The current mandate that energy companies get 20 percent of their power from “renewable” sources, will be raised to a third over the next eight years. This will result in an average utility rate increase of 19 percent, according the California Air Resources Board. This is on top of the existing mandate so that the total increased cost to Pacific Gas and Electric customers will be 44 percent, to Southern California Edison customers 34 percent and to those served by the Los Angeles Department of Water a Power it will be 74 percent.

Suppose an acquaintance invites you to lunch. You meet him in front of the restaurant where he announces that he is a little strapped for cash. Turns out he can’t host lunch, but he will split the bill with you. You feel uncomfortable because you are on a brown bag budget, but nevertheless agree.

During lunch, he does most of the talking. It is clear he is trying to impress you. When the bill arrives it amounts to twenty-six dollars. Your companion takes out his wallet and stares intently at its contents for a few moments, before mumbling he has only eight dollars. This is unsettling because you barely have enough money for half the bill. At this point he excuses himself to use the restroom. As you observe him, he crosses the room passes the restroom door and darts out an exit. That’s when the realization hits you that you will be spending the afternoon washing dishes.

You’ve just had lunch with Jerry Brown.

A recent editorial cartoon sums up the tension between average taxpayers and government employee unions. It shows two guys sitting at a bar. One, head in hand and looking glum, is labeled “public sector” and he says to his companion, “They’re trying to cut our pensions…” The other fellow, labeled “private sector,” replies, “What’s a pension?”

If this bar is in California – where the official unemployment rate is 12.5 percent not including those who have completely given up looking for work – Mr. Private Sector might also ask, “What’s a job?”

Over time, how much of the public views those who work for government has changed from “respected civil servants” to “militant special interest” dedicated to preserving and expanding their “entitlements” at any cost to taxpayers. In this case, perception is reality.

Governor Brown has submitted a budget that he claims includes drastic spending cuts. And he has dropped the other sandal by announcing he will also seek massive tax hikes, a package of increases that are essentially the same as those overwhelmingly rejected by voters in May of 2009.

While the expert analysis of the budget plan continues, it has already become obvious that a number of items described as “cuts,” do not represent a decrease in spending, just tricky bookkeeping. For example, Brown shows a billion dollar pay down on the deficit by raiding the voter approved Proposition 10 tobacco tax that goes to support children’s services.

However, one does not need a green eyeshade to see that two areas of state spending that are being held sacrosanct are K-12 funding and prisons. In fact, if Brown’s plan is approved, the prison budget will be expanded from $8.9 billion to 9.1 billion, even though California already spends over twice as much per prisoner than does Texas, and much more than the national average.

Jerry Brown is being applauded for bringing honesty to the California budget process. True, compared to his predecessor, his blunt talk is refreshing. (He abstains from using the word “fantastic” in every sentence). Also, he hasn’t minced words in describing the scope of the problem. But let’s deconstruct whether he has been entirely honest in his handling of the budget as well as the plan itself.

First, to the extent he was saying, “we had no idea it was this bad,” the reality is, yes he did. Everyone did. For years fiscal conservatives have warned about the impending disaster both in terms of overspending and the extraordinary level of debt being racked up by state, much of it consisting accounting maneuvers for the purpose of kicking the budget can down the road.

Second, during the campaign, he pointedly said that “everything is on the table.” But that’s not quite true either. His budget plan lacks any real reforms. Where is the pension reform? What will be done to blunt the power of the unions? What about more efficient ways to deliver public services? For example, why does California continue to spend twice the national average to incarcerate one prisoner for a year? The real answer to this is that he has refrained from putting anything “on the table” likely to anger the unions – the very interests that financed his campaign. (Sure, the unions will cry crocodile tears over the cuts, but there is nothing here that threatens their power).

Suppose a grinning real estate agent knocks on your door with a proposal. He will buy your home (which you own free and clear) for a fair price if, in return, you promise to spend all the proceeds within one year and agree to rent back your property over the next 20 years for an amount that exceeds what you were paid. At the end of 20 years you will have to arrange a new rental agreement or become homeless.

At this point most property owners would recognize a scam and some might even summon the family pit bull to make sure that the slick salesman beats a hasty retreat.

However, what is an obvious scam to average taxpayers is called sound public policy by Sacramento politicians.