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Several bay area newspapers have addressed the Republican Senate leadership budget proposals. The text provided below is from the Sac Bee.
“Governor Brown challenged Republicans to be engaged in the budget process. Republicans have been engaged for months. Today he was presented with a thorough outline, which reiterates our priorities, including: getting our state back on track by reining in runaway spending; controlling unsustainable public employee pensions; getting people back to work; protecting and improving our state’s public education system; and making critical adjustments to the governor’s flawed budget.”
Republicans were accused of being the party of ‘no’ and now Republicans are accused of being the party of ‘too much yes.'”
Gilbert note. As this is a lengthy list I will encourage readers to go the Sac Bee link as provided below.
Let me simply say that the GOP list addresses pension reform, regulatory reform, CEQA, GHG, spending cap, education reform, RDA, enterprise zones and taxes.
Following is the entire text on pensions. I am disappointed that in the area of RDA it only mentions a “Huff compromise,” whatever that is, and an “overall hit to budget, including compromise=$700 million-$1 billion”
What did they say?? This one sentence response to the future status of RDAs is not acceptable.
In any case this is the full text on pension reform:
PENSION REFORM – STATE & LOCAL EMPLOYEES
Starting Point:
o Applies to both future and current employees (severability for existing) – (Admin: NO)
o Equal share of pension costs between employer & employee (50/50 split) – (Admin: NO)
o Increase retirement formulas (Little Hoover Commission) – (Admin: NO)
o Uniform standards and definitions for disability benefits- (Admin: NO)
o Reduce growing state payroll & salaries (LHC) – (Admin: NO)
o Voter approval for future increases (Admin: No)
o And all of the items below:
CURRENT PROPOSAL:
Anti-Spiking – Current and Future Employees (as legally achievable)
o No purchases of Air-Time (Admin: OK)
o Highest 5-year average. (Admin: Highest 3 year average, with CalSTRS exception for 25 years of service)
o Base pay [salary only – no vacation, overtime, car allowance, uniform allowance, etc.] used for determining final retirement benefits. (Admin: Base benefits on regular, recurring pay)
o No Double-Dipping /Revolving Door (Admin: Allow retired annuitants (cost effective for state), but forbid drawing a full-time salary and a pension from the same employer)
Cost Control- Current and Future Employees (as legally achievable)
o Cap Final pension amount (Admin: Ok w/Cap of $106K w/COLA – same as Social Security – and additional 12.4% for non-SS employees.)
o Increase employee cost sharing for health and pension benefits. (Admin: NO)
o Increase vesting time for health care.
o Disallow employer making employee’s contributions/no pension “holidays” for employers or employees (Admin: Ok. Limit going below normal cost).
o No retroactive benefit increases (Admin: OK)
o Incentive-based 401-k style option for current employees in a manner that guarantees cost-saving
Future employees
o Permit public employers to change (lower) of future unaccrued retirement benefits (Admin: Maybe)
o Mandatory hybrid pension plan. (Admin: Require creation of hybrid option, based on federal government model, to be offered by systems by July 1, 2012.
Oversight
o Governing board conflict of interest and greater transparency (Admin: Add 2 public members to each retirement board. For CalPERS, switch SPB representative to DOF)
Other
o 2/3 Legislative approval required for changes to salaries & benefits (Admin: Maybe)
o Strengthen standards for revoking or reducing pensions of public employees and elected officials convicted of certain crimes involving the public trust. (Admin: Ok)
o Legislature to set actuarially-sound rate for CalSTRS and fund within Prop 98
o SUMMARY OF WHAT WE THINK GOVERNOR AGREED TO: Little Hoover Commission’s recommendations – minus existing employees and no mandatory hybrid for current employees.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/03/senate-republicans-make-list-o.html
These proposals, that Brown has apparently agreed to, are significant for dealing with the biggest problem in the entire public pension system, which is the absolutely unsustainable benefits for public safety. Implementing these immediately would substantially reduce pension obligations for local governments.
o No purchases of Air-Time (Admin: OK)
o Highest 5-year average. (Admin: Highest 3 year average, with CalSTRS exception for 25 years of service)
o Base pay [salary only – no vacation, overtime, car allowance, uniform allowance, etc.] used for determining final retirement benefits. (Admin: Base benefits on regular, recurring pay)
o No Double-Dipping /Revolving Door (Admin: Allow retired annuitants (cost effective for state), but forbid drawing a full-time salary and a pension from the same employer).
o Cap Final pension amount (Admin: Ok w/Cap of $106K w/COLA – same as Social Security – and additional 12.4% for non-SS employees.)
Adding a mandatory hybrid plan for new employees would also go a long way, over time, to solving long term pension issues.
The regulatory reform stuff is nonsense. CEQA is a small part of the problem with excessive costs and red tape, most of which comes from local government and their overpaid consultants. This “fix” appears to be something that is designed to benefit major polluters and big oil, rather than solve the real problems. I would love to see legislation that would only allow cities to pass along the marginal cost of discretionary actions, instead of burdening someone applying for a conditional use permit with an arbitrarily-determined, fully-burdened cost of running the city. Require consultants working for cities to compete on price instead of qualifications. And ban local agencies and governments from hiring lobbyists.
MQ, you conveniently forgot the measure that would make the biggest impact on the unsustainable public safety benefits – switching all employees over to a 401(k)-type system like the vast majority of us in the private sector have. Then, the public employees will be risking their own money (rather than taxpayer money) and will have to earn their retirement like most of the rest of us.
*Bravo…..wisdom Mayor Quimby….wisdom!
Love it. Add Dutton to the allumni who benefitted from Californias generousity. Although Bob only made it through Jr. College. Never made the leap to CSU or UC like his collegues.
But in the Real Estate business, who needs a degree when you have public assistance in CRA’s.
HYPOCRITE!