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08-23-2010, 11:17 AM
Salerno is starting with the general employees union. He wants to change the formula that determines payouts upon an employee's retirement. Currently, employees are eligible for retirement at 62 with 10 years of service or 65 with six years of service. Pensions are calculated based on the employees' income and years of service.

Salerno would reduce the income multiplier from 3 to 2.25 percent and increase the average final compensation from three years to five.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/22/1787661/gables-stuck-in-pension-pinch.html

08-24-2010, 04:26 PM
Salerno needs to eat shit and die


Salerno is starting with the general employees union. He wants to change the formula that determines payouts upon an employee's retirement. Currently, employees are eligible for retirement at 62 with 10 years of service or 65 with six years of service. Pensions are calculated based on the employees' income and years of service.

Salerno would reduce the income multiplier from 3 to 2.25 percent and increase the average final compensation from three years to five.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/22/1787661/gables-stuck-in-pension-pinch.html

08-24-2010, 10:29 PM
Currently, an employee can work in Coral Gables for 30 years and retire with a pension worth 75 percent of their salary.
Under the new system, an employee will retire after 30 years with a pension worth 67.5 percent of their salary.
The City Commission also agreed to base the pension calculation to the employee's five highest years instead of three.
Cumulatively, these changes ensure a lower pension payout
In other business, the City Commission unanimously voted to freeze the general employees' wages for this year. Other changes they passed include:
• Reduce merit pay raises from 5 to 2.5 percent and longevity pay from 5 to 2.5 percent.
• Stop paying employees a $30-per-month HMO supplement and $23.46 monthly reimbursement for benefit costs.
• Eliminate the practice of selling back unused vacation.

[url]http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/24/1788907/unions-pensions-reduced.html/url]

08-25-2010, 12:39 AM
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/24/1788907/unions-pensions-reduced.html

08-25-2010, 07:09 PM
Gables Police and Fire folks are on borrowed time as the CM has now finished screwing the General employees and he can now start on us.

The CM intends to downsize the pension multiplier along with ALL incentive and merit pay.

The CM has held up on selecting a new Chief so he/she can come in clean and not be part of the screwing we are going to get.

Pembroke Pines, Hialeah and yesterday the City of Miami have all either done or announced the folks in P & F are going to get screwed. This gives the CM and our gutless Commissioners the belief they are doing the right thing.

If Gables Police and Fire don’t get more politically active, like the Metro PBA is….next year things will be worst!

08-27-2010, 12:48 PM
Salerno is a Fag and needs to eat shit and die

08-31-2010, 03:40 PM
Miami Commission likely to cut city salaries, pensions
On the brink? Miami is warned of new budget crisis
BY CHARLES RABIN
MIAMIHERALD.COM

Desperate to avert financial chaos, Miami commissioners are expected to vote on drastic salary and pension cuts Tuesday that could help fill a $105 million budget hole.
The financial blueprint, coming for a vote four months after the city declared a state of ``financial urgency,'' is expected to reduce salaries by $31 million and pension payouts by more than $41 million. The city could save another $7 million by changing healthcare providers while charging higher deductibles and co-payments.
Miami has encountered a double financial whammy in recent years -- from the declining real estate market and a 2007 fire union contract that caused salaries and pensions to skyrocket.
Those salaries rose as the stock market crashed. Now, the city's overall pension debt has run to one-fifth of its entire operating budget, with Miami paying $101 million this year.
``Hopefully there will be a consensus that we have to take measures that nobody likes,'' said Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, who as a commissioner three years ago voted in favor of the fire union contract.
For the plan to pass, a majority of the five commissioners must approve.
Regalado and others in City Hall said they expected police and fire to try to halt Tuesday's vote through legal action. By late Monday no legal challenge had been filed and calls to police and fire union leaders and their attorneys were not returned.
The cuts would target both union and nonunion employees in a city workforce of 4,313, which includes full-time and part-time workers. Those cuts, City Manager Carlos Migoya said, would begin at 5 percent for those earning $39,000, and tap out at 13 percent for anyone making over $120,000.
The average firefighter in Miami earns almost $90,000 a year, and many rank among the city's top 10 earners, pulling in more than $300,000 annually in combined salary and benefits. Police average about $74,000 in salary, general service workers $66,000 and sanitation employees about $39,000 a year.
PENSION PAYOUTS
The pension cuts will be deep: After Sept. 30, yearly pension payouts for anyone who is not yet vested will max out at $100,000.
An employee's pension payout -- now based on the highest earning year for police, and two years for fire -- will adjust to a five-year average. Also, spouses, who now collect pension payouts for life if their partner dies, would collect for 10 years.
Charlie Cox, president of the general services employee union for the past 23 years, said the plan prompted hundreds of workers to join a city program called DROP that allows employees to keep working but freezes their pension benefit, allowing for a one-time large payout. He also said close to 100 employees could choose to retire before the end of next month, ensuring they are paid their highest salary.
Cox, who turns 60 Wednesday, said he'll be among those retiring following the contentious city negotiations.
``I've had enough,'' said Cox, an electrician by trade who joined the city 35 years ago. ``I'm coming back as a business agent for the employees. There's going to be no institutional knowledge here, other than myself.''
Driving the city's quest for cuts: A severely depleted reserve fund.
Today, a reserve that stood at $140 million seven years ago is down to about $20 million. That's about one-fourth of what the city must maintain to stay in line with an ordinance passed from the ashes of its last fiscal crisis in the 1990s.
Miami rode the construction wave of the past decade. Yet even as the city took in record revenues, its ballooning pension payout helped dry its rainy day reserve fund.
Regalado, elected mayor in November, hired Migoya in a bid to get the city back on solid financial footing.
In May, Migoya declared a state of ``financial urgency,'' an obscure state statute that triggered negotiations with unions. A magistrate has yet to rule on the negotiations.
But Miami -- in a rush to get its books in order before the budget year ends in September -- believes it has the right to hold Tuesday's ``Impact Hearing'' allowing commissioners to re-cast union contracts for one year.
Last year, facing similar budget constraints, the fire union agreed at the last minute to forgo five percent raises for its 630 employees for a year. That helped the city balance its budget last year.
FIRE CONTRACT
Again, the fire contract is in the city's sights. Firefighters receive anniversary and longevity bonuses, tuition and safety shoe reimbursements. They receive annual supplements for earning degrees -- after taxpayers help pay those tuition costs.
Commission Chairman Marc Sarnoff, supported politically by the fire union, has been outspoken about the need to curtail the salaries.
``Reductions are a much better alternative than layoffs,'' Sarnoff said.
``I have researched New York, Colorado and California. Instead of closing down fire stations, this is the next best option,'' he said.

11-24-2010, 03:57 PM
any updates? anything new going on?