Posted by GX, a member of the Foothill High School community, on Aug 28, 2012 at 12:55 pm
GX is a member (registered user) of PleasantonWeekly.com Mr. Hunt - Biased at half-complete summary articles like yours are becoming quite tiresome. As I challenged the City Council, I also challenge you to a public debate where I will use the city's own information to demonstrate how late and inadequate this latest contract is. Please do let me know if you are up for this. In the meantime, let me help you complete your article so that Pleasanton residents can be more informed.
RAISES
-The new contract still contains STEP raises which the typical fire employee gets every 6-12 months
- Fire received COLA raises in the 2000’s every single year all the way through 2009 – this means they were getting raised through the first two years of the recession
- NET, the average fire personnel cost increased dramatically over this past decade to $235K/person
POLICE CONTRIBUTION RATE
-The only reason why the police rate is lower than fire is because the city decided to pay off the $9M side fund, otherwise it would be much higher
-I’m sure the city is pleased with you publishing the 25.2% number without the context as it makes the problem with them seem less bad
RETROACTIVE PENSION INCREASE
-Fire like other agencies received huge retroactive increases to their pensions – for Fire it was 50%
-This give-away was not supposed to cost citizens any extra
-Clearly this did not happen which helps explain why our unfunded liability exploded from zero
WILLINGNESS OF EMPLOYEES
-Employees appear more willing because they are not being asked to give up much other than contribute to their own pensions
-The vast majority of concessions will be forced on future employees
-Future employees and citizens are being sacrificed to protect current employees
STARTING SALARIES
-Your quoted numbers are laughable and show that you are being fooled by whatever information source you are using
-While these may be accurate, I can guarantee you this is not what they are taking home due to how the system is gamed
- How about starting with the $235K/person number I gave you and challenge/investigate the incomplete information you are being given
WHINNING CITIZENS
-If newspapers like yours and the City Council did their jobs, there wouldn’t be any need for citizens to get more involved – trust me we would prefer to being doing other things
- We are tired of the growing problem (known since 2003) not being adequately addressed and the future of Pleasanton being dimmed because of this
-Just in this past year, the Council agreed to decrease the $121M (MVA) unfunded liability by 10% over 5 years – instead it has grown by $16M to $137M
-This wipes out by far any savings in this contract – in fact it wipes out most of the savings if not all of all recent contract concessions
Again, I’d be happy to debate anyone on this topic. Maybe then we’d determine who is doing their job and who is whining.
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Both firefighters and police officers in Pleasanton must realize how good they have it.
