Retired San Jose City Police Officer and San Jose City District 1 Council Member Pete Constant spoke March 21st at the SVARW Monthly Meeting on the topic of Public Pension Reform. Listed below is an overview of the four major components of San Jose City's plan:
- Current retirees maintain their benefits, including a 3% annual COLA, unless the City Council declares a Fiscal and Service Level Emergency, at which time the Council would have the latitude to impose a temporary (for up to 5 years) reduction or suspension of the COLA.
- Current city employees would maintain all the benefits they have accrued to date. If employees chose to stay with their current plan for future benefit accruals they would have to contribute toward up to 50% of the unfunded liabilities in the plan. This would be assessed at a rate of 4% of salary per year, beginning a year after ballot measure approval, and would increase in 4% increments each year until they reached a maximum of 16% of salary. The employee would also have the option of joining a new, lower-cost plan where their future benefit accruals would be lower and they would not have to make this contribution to the cost of the unfunded liabilities.
- New employees would split cost of retirement benefits 50-50 with the City.
- The council could no longer vote to provide increases in pensions and other post-retirement benefits. Enhancements to the plans, beyond what is specified in the ballot measure, would have to receive voter approval.
San Jose City's General Fund budget is roughly $900 million per year and goes to fund police, fire, libraries, parks maintenance, code enforcement, road repairs, and other services to city residents. Pension costs were $73 million 10 years ago. This year the city paid $245 million in pensions. This cost is estimated to rise to over $300 million per year in the next few years under the current retirement plans.
Go to Measure B to read the full text or cut and paste http://www.sanjoseca.gov/clerk/elections/2012Election/measures.pdf into your browser
Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women meets the third Wednesday of each month in Los Gatos at La Rinconada Country Club from 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM. SVARW will be hosting a "Candidate Forum" at our next meeting, April 18.
Men are always welcome to meetings/events too!
