Pension deal was a long time coming
By The Bakersfield Californian
After a yearlong stalemate, Kern County supervisors and two of the area's largest public safety unions seem to have found common ground on a new contract. Written by a mediator, the contract requires employees to contribute to health care and pension costs in exchange for a modest 2 percent raise over the next three years. The offer is a sensible one in light of the protracted and acrimonious negotiations of the past year and a half. Given the dubious stability of pension arrangements across the U.S., local union members will be wise to approve it.
The county's goal all along was to obtain concessions on retirement and health benefits without giving out raises in return. That was a long shot; the county's desire to address retirement and health costs is understandable but getting something from nothing is not how bargaining usually works. Not surprisingly, the union balked and dug in its heels.
Supervisors were right to seek ways to reduce costs for employee benefits. The county's pension fund is drastically underfunded and more and more county money has gone to annual funding of the system, causing steep cuts to public services. Union members may not be responsible for the market gyrations that sent the retirement system into a nosedive. But the same is true of private sector workers who saw their 401(k) plans drop by 40 percent and more. Fault is not the issue here. Everyone is dealing with sacrifice these days, and when unions insist that they should be exempt, it stokes the public's ire. Most of the local county unions have recognized this fact and offered to help.
The fact is, public safety employees' benefits are the most generous benefits enjoyed by county employees and, consequently, the most costly. A switch from the 3-at-50 retirement promise to 2-at-50 for new hires, and more contributions to retirement costs, is a solid step forward in bringing down those costs while still providing benefits unique to the demands of public safety.
Other jurisdictions have cut pension costs with similar reforms, and even Gov. Jerry Brown has called for later retirement ages for public safety workers in his pension reform proposal.
Harsh as it may seem, that's the world we live in today.
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