06-29-2010, 03:46 AM
The following is from an article in the Wall Street Journal. Florida will shortly have to face its own reality as well. The recent plan to invest Florida pension funds into more risky investments is --well, just plain INSANE.
:evil: :evil:
A tentative contract recently reached for the California Association of Highway Patrolmen would increase monthly employee contributions to 10% from 8%, and would base retirement benefits on the highest three years of wages rather than the single highest year, to prevent pension "spiking," in which employees try to boost their final-year pay to increase their income for pension-calculation purposes.
In exchange, California state troopers would not be furloughed through 2013, and their salaries would be guaranteed for three years.
"It's a significant step…to get concessions of that magnitude," said Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for the office that represented Mr. Schwarzenegger in the negotiations with the six unions.
Jon Hamm, who negotiated the tentative contract on behalf of 7,000 state troopers, said his group concluded it needed to get on board with cuts beyond those to new hires. "We have to take a different approach than traditional unions have taken. And that is to be part of the solution," he said.
In some instances, unions that are making concessions are trying to ward off what they see as a much bigger threat—the specter of a switch from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan, which is similar to a 401(k) in the private sector.
That worry was behind some recent union concessions in Minnesota, said Eliot Seide, executive director of AFSCME in St. Paul. Mr. Seide said his board agreed to a reduction in cost-of-living adjustments for current retirees "reluctantly," so that "we don't kill the goose that lays that golden egg."
I
:evil: :evil:
A tentative contract recently reached for the California Association of Highway Patrolmen would increase monthly employee contributions to 10% from 8%, and would base retirement benefits on the highest three years of wages rather than the single highest year, to prevent pension "spiking," in which employees try to boost their final-year pay to increase their income for pension-calculation purposes.
In exchange, California state troopers would not be furloughed through 2013, and their salaries would be guaranteed for three years.
"It's a significant step…to get concessions of that magnitude," said Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for the office that represented Mr. Schwarzenegger in the negotiations with the six unions.
Jon Hamm, who negotiated the tentative contract on behalf of 7,000 state troopers, said his group concluded it needed to get on board with cuts beyond those to new hires. "We have to take a different approach than traditional unions have taken. And that is to be part of the solution," he said.
In some instances, unions that are making concessions are trying to ward off what they see as a much bigger threat—the specter of a switch from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan, which is similar to a 401(k) in the private sector.
That worry was behind some recent union concessions in Minnesota, said Eliot Seide, executive director of AFSCME in St. Paul. Mr. Seide said his board agreed to a reduction in cost-of-living adjustments for current retirees "reluctantly," so that "we don't kill the goose that lays that golden egg."
I