ERIP Halftime Report: THE LIST

About half of these people are Asst. and Deputy City Attorney's who will be getting an average of $130,000 year! As much as if they'd stayed on working, but we'll pay them to play golf somewhere anything but work.

Many of them have wanted to jump ship out of the office since their saber-rattling, embarrassment- inducing, vendetta obsessed (like his real boss, Cooley), Democrat-hating, figurehead the Nooch stormed into there. And we're gong to pay them now to do nothing, while he wants to hire dozens of NEW people we'll pay in addition to these f/t salaries on pension, people who are "loyalists" to pursue priorities like turning all medical marijuana dispensary owners and even patients into criminals to fill the jails with, as real criminals are getting released for lack of space.
What an outrage.

The city is also losing the most experienced people who have kept our traffic flowing, trash picked up, the person in the Controller's office charged with overseeing various dept. budgets, cops and firefighters, while paying these pensions anyway. Many who aren't laid off will just be shifted to DWP, and to pay their salaries our rates are soaring under the guise of "green energy." Yes this blog and others are making noise about that but by picking only on certain areas in line with your political views, critics are written off as conservative cranks.
We will just keep paying more for less and less.

Deputy City Engr $176,000. Too depressing, to think kids are starving. We can thank our Mayor and his likes. What does he know or why would he care? He has been eating from the public trough all his life, he has no concept of what earning a living means. After all it is not his money.....

As much as you may hate lawyers we have completed four years of college, three years of law school, and passed the hardest bar exam in the U.S. The highest paid, most experienced lawyers in the City Attorney's Office are paid less than first year associates at the City's outside law firms. We're not getting rich on these jobs by any means, and with budget cutbacks there are no lifestyle advantages whatsoever.

What about names?

Here's a fun fact. The mayor, the controller, and most of the councilmembers have lowered their salaries by 5-16%. Wanna know who hasn't? Ron's hero Trutanich. His reason? He made more in private practice.

http://www.dailynews.com/ci_14726450

Ron, you neglected to mention some pertinent details.

First of all the average pension under ERIP is higher than normal because ERIP was intended to move high salaried employees off the payroll.

Secondly, the increased pension costs due to ERIP will be paid fully by the remaining city workers, not the taxpayers. Their contribution rate is higher than Social Security, which they don't get.

Thirdly, there are five groupings of ERIP retirees. Most will get an additional 3 years, not 5. In either case, the remaining employees will have the additional cost deducted from their pay.

To Jack Humphreville @ March 22 4:00 a.m.

Why are the names important to the story? Isn't the concern of the Public SUPPOSED to be about fiscal responsibility, decisions of City leaders, etc.? The names of the employees contribute nothing except to invite harassment and invasion of their privacy. Unless you're alleging people named "Jack" got lower pensions or all those named "Antonio" got a "Mayor's Name Bonus", what difference does it make?

He wants their names posted so he can harass the attorneys who passed up the private sector to work for the city for less.

Humphreville is also a former investment banker. During these hard times, investment bankers have had extreme difficulties paying off the mortgage on the beach house they visit once every other year, which makes guys like Jack well-qualified to pass judgement on others being overpaid. They obviously feel our pain.

Anon at 1:59:

While agree with your general thesis that the names should be irrelevant, in this city I'm not so sure. It's my understanding that the city payroll includes many, many examples of sons, daughters, husbands, wives, cousin uncles etc... It's not easy to document those relationships from the outside, but having names would help...

Here is some fun with math that show how insane these pensions are. To earn $175948 from in interest from long term municipal bonds earning 4.09% you would need bonds worth approximately $4,400,000. Now lets pretend you work in the private sector and wanted to save $4,400,000 for retirement over 25years of work. You would need to save $176,000 per year for 25 years or $1000 a year more than you earned. Mind that is sticking your money in a mattress not earning anything. Now lets assume you invested in the stock market earning 8% per year. In this scenario you would need to save approx $4595.94 per month for 25years. State and Federal income taxes come to 42% on a Salary of $175948. This leaves $8504.15 per month after taxes. So to save $4,400,000 you would need to save a whopping 54% of your after tax income. And that assumes you make the same constant salary for the 25 years. It is highly likely this person made less than $4600 per month when they started working.

Here is some fun with math that show how insane these pensions are. To earn $175948 from in interest from long term municipal bonds earning 4.09% you would need bonds worth approximately $4,400,000. Now lets pretend you work in the private sector and wanted to save $4,400,000 for retirement over 25years of work. You would need to save $176,000 per year for 25 years or $1000 a year more than you earned. Mind you that is sticking your money in a mattress not earning anything. Now lets assume you invested in the stock market earning 8% per year. In this scenario you would need to save approx $4595.94 per month for 25years. State and Federal income taxes come to 42% on a Salary of $175948. This leaves $8504.15 per month after taxes. So to save $4,400,000 you would need to save a whopping 54% of your after tax income. And that assumes you make the same constant salary for the 25 years. It is highly likely this person made less than $4600 per month when they started working. This is absolute insanity and can not continue.

The courts have ruled that names of these retirees are in the public domain and can be released. Just as the Daily News released names of all City Employees which was given to them in a database format which made it easy to set up a web page look-up table.

To Anonymous @ 4:46 p.m.

The City is a large employer. I have no doubt that there are many of the type of connections you describe. Is that so unusual in an employer of this size and that has been around as long? I have much less concern about things like that with Civil Service rules than in the private sector where a manager or company owner can hire and fire at will.

For a Civil Service job you have to meet the educational and experience qualifications AND pass a written or oral test where you are ranked and THEN only the highest scorers will go on to the job interview. Even then, the hiring is usually done by a panel which could not include a relative. The entire process usually takes more than a year.

Where you would have a valid concern about nepotism and improper influence are the non-Civil Service positions in the Mayor's and City Council's offices. Exempt positions like that are ripe for favors and friend placements. Because they are Civil Service Exempt, I don't know that they even get pensions or other benefits if they managed to stick around after their Patron had moved on.

By Names @ 9:48 p.m.

Even if the Courts have decided (wrongly if you ask me) that the names CAN be made public, why SHOULD they? How is the reader more informed about City finances knowing that the Management Analyst who is receiving a pension of $2425.26 is named John Smith?

In the era of identity theft and other scams, the Daily News had no reason to include the names of Civil Servants in their databases besides pure voyeurism and their wish to collectively punish anyone connected to City government.

4:46, if you're looking for nepotism, you're not going to find it. For one, a civil service candidate would have to conspire not only with the hiring department but also the city personnel department. And unlike private industry, the hiring process is standardized because of heightened scrutiny and potential lawsuits. No talking about your favorite baseball team to gain rapport.

For example, to be considered for an engineering position, you interview in front of panel that asks the same questions to every candidate. Each panel member comes up with a numerical score which is averaged and the candidate is placed on a list sorted according to that average. Only the highest scores are selected for followup interviews.

Contrast this with private industry, where the CEO's son automatically becomes VP after college and employees get $1000 bonus checks for refering their friends.

Rob Armstrong, there's no law that says a retirement check must be a capital gains. If there was, the city would not be having budget problems right now because it would be richer than most foreign countries. On that note, it's pretty stupid to treat a pension as mere interest off a low yield bond for the sole reason of accusing each city employee of having $4 million in taxpayer dollars stashed away somewhere. No city employee will ever cash out this imaginary $4 million you're complaining the city is stealing from you because that money doesn't exist. Do you think when a private industry retiree collects his social security and 401k checks, that money is just gains skimmed off the top of his private multimillion dollar investment portfolio? No, the checks are all he has and they were funded via decades of taxes and paychecks.

As a 15 year City employee who had to take a LACERS disability pension far earlier than the regular LACERS service pension, I really resent the sensationalism of press coverage of public employees and their pensions.

So much is made of the lawyers, engineers, etc., who would have made far greater amounts of money in the private sector. They did not "scam" the system at all, but clearly chose public service for other reasons. Government at all levels obviously needs its lawyers, engineers, doctors, etc. But it also needs us much more ordinary clerks, sanitation workers, accountants, firefighters, police officers, etc., as well.

Us "ordinary" civil servants get a considerably more modest pensions. Anyone who had put in enough time in private sector employment, before or after their City job, would get Social Security, but only at a greatly reduced rate depending on the size of the City pension.

But many or most City employees do not collect anything from Social Security even if they paid in to it. This is almost NEVER mentioned in all the sensationalist rantings of certain politicians or the press.

As an LA City retiree who had to retire at 51–at LEAST 10 years earlier than planned due to the effects of Multiple Sclerosis (MS)–the City would not allow me to go on LACERS health and dental plans until I was 55. If I had not been able to have my husband's health plan coverage, I would have had to wait TWO full years before I could apply for Medicare coverage.

Athough I had worked many years and paid into Social Security before going to work for the City, I'd worked too long for the City to collect even a reduced amount from Social Security Disability (nor will I get any when I turn 65 as I'm short a few credits).

Too bad us ordinary working people are such a convenient target.

Wonderful to read!

Wonderful to read!

Great post!