Public employees are breaking Californias back (San Diego: 2009, crime, neighborhood)

[jimhcom]

Recent articles have stated that CALPERS has losses in the neighborhood of 80 billion dollars, and that the tax payers are on the hook for the losses. City, County, and State workers and their collective Unions have been making themselves millionaires at the expense of the rest of us.
I keep reading about these comments from public employees blowing their own horn about how qualified they are, what a great job they do, and how they deserve these obscene benefits. Personally I do not see it. I can honestly say I have never been impressed by the job performance of any public employee I have worked with. The State is bankrupt, the infrastructure is badly decayed, the water system is inadequate, the school system measured by test scores world wide is a failure, fires burn out of control because bureaucrats argue about jurisdiction and refuse help from other sources. The only thing I see them doing is wasting massive quantities of tax dollars and fiddling while Rome burns. It is time for change, in my opinion it is time to clean house.

[Donn2390]

Sounds like you are a good canidate for relocation. If you don't like anything about the state, there are 49 more to chose from.
Being a retired city worker, I love California....
Much of what you say isn't true, but if you feel that way, time to go...

[Huckleberry3911948]

one way of feeling better is to bring down everybody around you.
tell me if we pay cops social workers and teachers min wage, what do you think you will get?
so these people put up with our stuff the garbage that we dont wana deal with for 30 years and then you dont wana pay them the pension you promised, is that it?
americans love to spend but hate to pay.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by jimhcom

The only thing I see them doing is wasting massive quantities of tax dollars and fiddling while Rome burns. It is time for change, in my opinion it is time to clean house.

Perhaps now is the time for you to vote with your feet. I know I'm going to but it has more to do with cultural shifts, too many laws, too many regulations, too many people, too much crime and too high taxes than anything else.

Oh, by the way I'm one of those retired state workers you disdain, as is my wife, and I want to thank you for our modest retirements, far from millions, and excellent benefits. I won't say anything about how we earned them as your mind's already made up.

G'day!

[jimhcom]

Originally Posted by Donn2390

Sounds like you are a good canidate for relocation. If you don't like anything about the state, there are 49 more to chose from.
Being a retired city worker, I love California....
Much of what you say isn't true, but if you feel that way, time to go...

Thank you for making my point. Here is a city worker who confuses public workers with the State. Public workers are not the State. The Citizens and tax payers are the state. They feel as if this is some type of an entitlement program and they deserve to exploit the taxpayers and the system. Well now the bill is coming due for several decades of corruption.
Public employees are now paid 2X to 3X what private sector worker make for similar jobs. This article explains it.
http://ecoworld.com/blog/2009/02/08/...-compensation/

[DMenscha]

Actually most public employees participate in CALPers, including city, county, local fire and water districts too!

I've attached a chart from this article. Calpers Looks to Shore Up Assets - WSJ.com

[City Boy]

This is going on in at least half of the other states right now. What can you do?

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by jimhcom

Thank you for making my point. Here is a city worker who confuses public workers with the State. Public workers are not the State. The Citizens and tax payers are the state.

I hate to also point this out to you but most "public" workers in the state, county and municipal, are most assuredly covered under CalPERS for retirement so their pensions and benefits are also affected.

Here's another truth that may have passed you by. "Public" workers are both citizens of the state and tax payers.

The good news for you is that while stupid may be forever, ignorance can be fixed!

[sav858]

I agree that public employee pensions are killing the state and local govt's. San Diego's public pension fraud is killing this city. I don't get why public employees think they deserve better benefits than the private sector. Unions when they get too big and powerful get too selfish and greedy, just look at how the UAW has pretty much help lead to the Big 3's financial troubles with their overly generous benefits.

[EscapeCalifornia]

There's two big problems:

1) They can retire at age 55 and make something like 70% of their highest earned salary for life + COLA + benefits and live another 30 years

2) Defined benefit pension plan: Pension is set in stone and its up to the employer (that's us) to fund it no matter how poorly the investments perform.