While we provide a service to the city which employs us, our ultimate duty is to the rule of law and to the Constitution. These are our ultimate authorities so long as we are police officers; not you, not the city manager, not city hall. The. Rule. Of. Law.

That being said, do a little research on police agencies around the bay area. The vast majority of them are reasonably well staffed and pay roughly the same salary as San Jose. Many do so and have far better benefits – particularly with respect to their retirement packages. Anecdotally speaking, one of our former officers transferred to Palo Alto PD and is now taking home substantially more than I am – a bit less than double.

San Francisco has a population 80% the size of San Jose and maintains a police force that is double. In fact, the gross disparity of staffing between San Jose and many agencies across the nation is stunning. If you dig a little deeper, you will find that, throughout the Bay Area, virtually every other agency is better staffed on a per capita basis and pays at least as well, if not better than San Jose does. Even with the Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Department, where the pay is rather less, the ultimate take-home pay is as good as San Jose. Santa Clara is hiring, SCCSO is hiring, Santa Cruz SO is hiring, When I last checked (about a month ago) Redwood City and Fremont were also hiring. Bottom line, San Jose’s wages and benefits have traditionally been just barely competitive around the Bay Area.

So please, ask yourself the same question most of us in the PD have been asking. How is San Jose’s finances so screwed up that it can’t afford to even barely manage parity with other police agencies when it comes to wages and benefits? And why is it that San Jose can’t even manage that while employing anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 the number of officers per capita that other agencies in the area do? Don’t you think there must be something amiss here? How is San Jose going so very wrong? Can you look outside the spoon-fed garbage that is being fed to you out of City Hall or are you so complacent or lacking in curiosity that you are willing to watch as the Brain Trust in City Hall does their level best to destroy every bit of safety that the PD has bought with blood, sweat, integrity and ingenuity? In the end, it won’t be the PD which ultimately suffers. It will be the community.

That was great. 

I feel for city workers.  Just not enough to keep paying for something I cannot afford.  As a parent I am trying to live within my means every month, as a taxpayer I appreciate Councilman Liccardo and Mayor Reed trying to make sure the city does the same.

That honesty and accountability has to work both ways.  When is it that the unions, both leaders and member rank & file, will accept that the elected officials have largely been bankrolled by them?  The leaders that that have put us in this precarious financial situation are union backed leaders!!  If the unions did a better job of selecting their candidates they’d realize that backing the person who says they’ll vote for your increases and protect your jobs but have no secure way of funding it long term is just borrowing trouble. 

Now its time to pay up.  Go back and be angry, upset and frustrated with all your union backed elected officials.  Gonzalez, Chavez, Kalra, Campos, Nguyen, Diaz and all the rest who made those sweetheart deals with NO plan on how to pay for them longterm is what got us in this mess.  Thank God Liccardo and Reed are leading us out of it!

Not giving back 10%.  Fine.  As a taxpaying life long resident of this city (which over 50% of YOUR ranks cannot say since most PD & FD personnel live out of San Jose.  Nothing like being greedy with someone else’s money is there?)

San Jose residents are sick and tired of the bullying tactics of city worker unions, especially those of PD & Firedepartment.  Don’t believe me?  Look at the overwhelming reelection of Mayor Reed.  Look at the overwhelming passage of Measure V & W.  Ya’ll want to say you’re for the people but the people have spoken.  WHy is it that YOU aren’t listening???

There is a basic problem with your calculations there City Employee.  First, employee and city contributions are only a percentage of the retirement fund.  When the city has made the claim in the past that the retirement fund is “100% funded” this includes all of their investments, not just the dollars coming in from contributions by workers and the city.  In fact, the pension fund is essentially legalized gambling on the part of the city.

The city invests in various funds and gambles that their investments will sustain a certain rate of return.  As these rates fluctuate, the retirement fund will also vary up and down depending on the various investments.  Even though your calculations are correct in that employees contribute different amounts at different times and career steps, the city investments are supposed to make up for these discrepancies.  In the good times the city can make so much money that they will do exactly what they did and reduce the amount that they were paying into the fund.  Of course they did not let the workers reduce their contribution. 

One would think that the city would recognize the ups and downs of the market and over fund the retirement accounts during good times knowing that as certain as death and taxes, those funds are going to dip.  Even an average high school math student knows that the financial markets are a roller coaster with near certain highs and lows.  The city though is plagued by the disease of ambitious politicians who have to spend every dime in their pockets to appease their constituents during their one or two terms. 

No politician is going to be popular if every time there is a budget surplus, they sock it away for the bad times.  Just like the sick leave policies of the private sector “use it or lose it” is always the order of the day.  City council people have always fought tooth and nail to bring home the bacon for their districts.  Most city council people, and sadly our state and federal senators and congress people alike, know that our ADD afflicted public wants immediate gratification.  Long-term financial planning just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for San Jose any time soon.

“Angry that I’m carrying the cost of your cadillac compensation on my back?  Cadillac compensation that was negotiated in a backroom between union owned city officials and the unions?  Yes”

Here we go again with perpetuating the myth that public worker pensions are inherently “unsustainable” and that the contracts negotiated in good faith by the unions in the light of day were corrupt and excessively compensated public workers.  The simple truth is that when the current contracts were negotiated, they were fair given the conditions at the time.  The public sector was making money hand over fist.  Private sector perks were rampant and public service was looked on with disdain.  The various unions negotiated with the city to try and reach some kind of parity.  The city has never been able to compete with private sector salaries and therefore the pensions and other retirement benefits were used to provide some incentives to otherwise qualified workers who might head to the private sector.  As stated by others, sick leave buyouts, pay raises, percentages at retirement, were all agreed upon willingly by both sides of the table.

Sam, you stated the situation yourself in your post. “After all, employees fairly bargained for these benefits. Moreover, even as many taxpayers pay more for those retiree benefits, we would do well to remember that many employees do not actually get much richer. In many cases the costs have been driven by factors having nothing to fattening any employee’s wallet, such as soaring health costs, longer life expectancies and deep market losses.”

However, you left out one very important part.  If all of the city’s current pensions problems were based solely on an economy that took a free fall, then certainly most city employees would feel some sense of obligation to help out.  The fact though that the city reduced their contributions during the fat times, ignoring that most basic of premise to save for a rainy day, is huge.  Add to this that the city has squandered money on excessive social programs, nice but optional building projects, and other mismanagement of tax dollars and the situation changes.

The simple fact is, had the City of San Jose continued to contribute their normal share into the retirement funds and been more fiscally responsible during the good times, we would not be in as serious of a mess.  The over used term “unsustainable” would not be trotted out every post and the citizens of San Jose would not feel the need to jump on the anti-union bandwagon that Chuck Reed and his minions consistently use. 

As it is, Chuck Reed has found a paper tiger to direct public angst at.  He has been wildly successful at diverting attention from city financial incompetence and sicking the most rabid of media and citizenry on every labor unit within the city, especially public safety.  I think the goal here is clear and it is union busting plain and simple.  Union haters have managed to gain some momentum and by blaming city, state, and federal woes on organized labor, it masks the true culpability on the parts of elected officials.

I believe Mayor Reed and his cronies have adopted the Rahm Emanuel mantra “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”  This financial crisis has allowed some council people and city managers to try and put their finger on the scales and tip the balance of power from one that has been traditionally even in San Jose to complete control by city officials. Collective bargaining, binding arbitration, and organized labor on the west coast are a far cry from some of the corrupt shenanigans that have taken place back east.  Nevertheless, the unions have been characterized as shady greedy players that have no interest in a successful city, only their own wallets.

Trust me, most unions are well aware of how the auto unions nearly drove all American auto makers into financial ruin.  Our city unions want our city to be financially solvent, successful, and cohesive.  Many city workers are also tax paying citizens.  Be that as it may, union workers are not going to be left holding the bag for complete financial incompetence on the part of some in the city.  Yes, the economy tanked.  Why is it then that there are many cities who are able to ride out the storm?  Some of these cities actually contribute the entire pension contribution for their workers (instead of the over 20% by public safety). Some of these cities continue to give their workers pay raises.  Some of these cities are not laying off workers in droves and some are even hiring. This is the billion dollar question and one that our city council does not want to answer. It is far more convenient to find a scapegoat. And sadly, it is working well given the complicity of the media.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA! That was so silly.

There, there Not Even Worthy. 

We know how upset you must be to think of your sick pay binky being taken away.  Your 250% pension match ice cream cone about to fall on the floor?  It’s all enough to make one rock back and forth whilst trying to find a happy place or string words into a semi-coherent sentence.

Yawn…. the talking head speaks!!!