San Jose Firefighters Battle Poison Pill Pension Referendum
The San Jose Firefighters are spearheading a lawsuit to challenge a local pension reform ballot referendum scheduled for June. The ballot measure proposes a comprehensive overhaul of the employee pension rules, and includes a “poison pill” provision that would “cut current employees’ pay four percent per year up to a total of 16 percent if this or any other Court were to invalidate the part of the measure that cuts the vested rights of current employees.”
The suit was filed last Friday in Santa Clara County Superior Court by four named plaintiffs: IAFF Local 230 President Robert Sapien, retired firefighter Clifford Hubbard, police officer Franco Vado, and city worker Karen McDonough.
Two critical points are alleged in the complaint: First, that the changes proposed by the referendum would violate the collective bargaining and constitutional rights of San Jose’s public employees. Second, that the “poison pill” provision violates the due process rights of employees as well as their constitutional right of access to courts for a redress of their grievances.
However, in terms of causes of action, the suit ignores those two points and alleges a single count: that the wording of the ballot initiative is not written in a neutral and non-argumentative manner, which is a requirement of the California Election Code. Specifically, the Election Code states that the language used “shall neither be an argument, nor be likely to create prejudice, for or against the proposed measure.”
The language currently proposed for the ballot measure is:
To protect essential services, including neighborhood police patrols, fire stations, libraries, community centers, streets and parks, shall the Charter be amended to reform retirement benefits of City employees and retirees by: increasing employees’ contributions, establishing a voluntary reduced pension plan for current employees, establish pension cost and benefit limitations for new employees, reform disability retirements to prevent abuses, temporarily suspend retiree COLAs during emergencies, require voter approval for increases in future pension benefits?
For relief the complaint seeks to have the court block the ballot initiative.
Here is a copy of the entire complaint with the ballot initiative information attached as an Exhibit. Verified Petition for Writ of Mandate _00167000_
A few things in the language of the ballot proposal stood out.
What’s an “emergency”?
What would constitute an “abuse” requiring “reform”? And what would that “reform” be?
Looks like the “voluntary” pension plan follows a 2% at 57 formula… Most agencies in the area are 3% at 50 or 55.
Should an employee decide to not take the “voluntary” plan, the other plan uses a 2% at 60 formula, not to exceed 65% of final compensation. That’s quite a change from the current plan.
I may be wrong, but I THINK San Jose’s pension currently goes off the highest earning year. The ballot proposal would change this to an average of the 3 best years.
By the way, the cost of living in SJ is 16% higher than the state average, and 52% higher than the national average (http://www.areavibes.com/san+jose-ca/cost-of-living/), so unless you want to spend your golden years living in an RV, if you’re a SJPD or SJFD retiree, you’re not going to be able to live in the city you gave your best years to.
And Curt, if you did some digging, you could write a LOT of articles about the history between Local 230 and the mayor of San Jose.
I will add this: the law firm representing the plaintiffs has a pretty good rep. I know one of the labor law attorneys there, and he is one of the sharpest guys I’ve ever met.
Well, if I’d read a bit more thoroughly, I’d have answered some of my own questions.
Looks like an “emergency” is whenever the city council decides it is, and that this would result in pension COLAs being frozen.
I’ll agree that some pension reform is needed (although, last I heard, PERS was about 4% of the state budget [http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/time-reality-check-californias-pension-talks]), but I have to wonder if this is an attempt by the mayor to win some more votes by showing everyone that he’s standing tall against the greedy public employee unions, and less about finding solutions. Local 230 has brought creative solutions to the mayor in the past, but was ignored. I’d have to imagine there is a lot more going on here than we’re reading about in the news.
Ferg
We all realize some reform is necessary – but at the same time – there seems to be no interest discussing of how we got to this point… short of blaming public employees that is.
The bottom line is elected officials did not put required contributions into the pension plans… and in many places this abuse of office went on for DECADES… Had public sector pension plans been subject to the same Federal laws (ERISA) as private sector pensions – those elected officials would be facing criminal liability. Those same officials are now blaming employees and the public is buying it.