13,000 protest Governor's plan to change collective bargaining for public employees

[30ashopper]

I think I'm missing the 11% personal contribution here though, so these numbers aren't quite right. Calling Buz Livingston!

 

[Bob Wells]

Ah ok.. I was having a hard time following you here -



Does that pension payment get a COLA while they are retired?

Lets assume they work for thirty three years (22 -> 55) and live to 82. Their top base salary when they leave (in 2010 dollars) would be 61K. So...

1.6% * 33 = 53% * 61K = 33K + (($5 * 33 = $165) * 12) = 35K

Retirement years would be about 28, so 28 * 35K = $980,000.00.

Take that and devide it by the number of years worked: $980,000.00 / 33 = 30K.

So their actul salary is whatever they make annually plus $30,000.00 in future benefits.

So a Walton County teacher with a BA really makes 65K to start, and at retirement, they'll be making about 100K.

I wonder if pension contributions are taxed?

They don't contribute so no they are not taxed, but their retirement income will be taxed. As for your assumption I venture a guess they are not seeing 100,000 a year after retirment. The former President of NWF State College, retirement was over 100k and I can assure you he was making more than a school teacher.

 

[beachmouse]

The former prez is also looking at losing his pension if the trial in March doesn't go in his favor.

 

[30ashopper]

They don't contribute so no they are not taxed, but their retirement income will be taxed. As for your assumption I venture a guess they are not seeing 100,000 a year after retirment. The former President of NWF State College, retirement was over 100k and I can assure you he was making more than a school teacher.

That was the calculation of real salary after they reach their top pay rate and assuming they start work at 22 and retire at 55, based on this:

http://www.walton.k12.fl.us/Employees/contracts/i/insss.pdf

What do you mean they don't contribute? I thought you said they contribute 11% per year to their pension?

 

[Bob Wells]

No the employer puts in approx 11% towards the retirement. Under FRS there is no employee contribution which is what has the FRS participants POed. If you pay someone 25000 a year and then expect to make them pay 5% of base, and they have not recieved a raise in 3-5 years it just seems they are getting screwed. They provide a service, they should be compensated. All these folks who feel state workers make so much, go talk to a Division of Forestry Worker and ask what they make, then go talk to a college professor and you will see a large diffence. Both jobs are important. Go to some of your county employees and find out what they are making and ask them when their last pay raise was and then follow them around for the day and see if they are worth it. I have searched but have been unable to find the article that gave the cost of Government by State and Florida was among the lowest and it seems we did it without a State income tax. Sure wish I could find that darn thing.

 

[GoodWitch58]

interesting article about the campaign to get rid of collective bargaining...it seems that "union" has moved ahead of "government", in the demonization list the right has devised.

The Betrayal of Public Workers | The Nation

As John Schmitt of the Center for Economic Policy Research recently showed, when state and local government employees are matched against private sector workers of the same age and educational levels, the public workers earn, on average, about 4 percent less than their private counterparts. Moreover, the results of Schmitt?s apples-to-apples comparison are fully consistent with numerous studies examining this same question over the past twenty years. One has to suspect that the pundits who have overlooked these basic findings have chosen not to look

 

[GoodWitch58]

interesting study on public and private compensation and benefits:http://www.slge.org/vertical/Sites/...ds/{03E820E8-F0F9-472F-98E2-F0AE1166D116}.PDF

There are several implications of our exercise. First, the compensation of state and local workers is not excessive. Second, this remains true when including benefits. Third, the pattern of results over the last 20 years has generally been one of declining relative earnings of state and local workers compared to similar private sector workers. Fourth, this remains true in most of the states that we examined, although some heterogeneity exists. These implications lead to the policy prescription that now is not the time to advocate for large-scale rollbacks in the compensation of state and local workers. Although the current recession calls for equal sacrifice, the long-term pattern indicates that state and local workers are not, on average, overcompensated. If the goal is to compensate state and local sector employees in a manner comparable to those in the private sector, the data do not call for reductions in state and local wages. If anything, they call for increases

 

[Andy A]

According to the governor on CNN, they basically agreed to this knowing that they could use collective bargaining to force the rates and benefits back up after the storm blew over. Hence the need for ending that. If you can catch a replay of his press conference I'd suggest it, it's pretty enlightening.

Yes it was. I wonder how many on SoWal except you and I saw it. It was also carried on FOX.

 

[30ashopper]

No the employer puts in approx 11% towards the retirement. Under FRS there is no employee contribution which is what has the FRS participants POed. If you pay someone 25000 a year and then expect to make them pay 5% of base, and they have not recieved a raise in 3-5 years it just seems they are getting screwed. They provide a service, they should be compensated. All these folks who feel state workers make so much, go talk to a Division of Forestry Worker and ask what they make, then go talk to a college professor and you will see a large diffence. Both jobs are important. Go to some of your county employees and find out what they are making and ask them when their last pay raise was and then follow them around for the day and see if they are worth it. I have searched but have been unable to find the article that gave the cost of Government by State and Florida was among the lowest and it seems we did it without a State income tax. Sure wish I could find that darn thing.

It is a pay cut, there's no doubt about that.

Overall though, I don't understand why you think a pension system is so great. You are basically agreeing to receiving a very large chunk of your salary as a deferred payment, and placing complete trust in government to keep that commitment to boot. That's crazy! If I were working for the state, I would be pushing for full payment up front, so that workers receive full salary and have complete control over money that is rightfully theirs.

 

[30ashopper]

interesting study on public and private compensation and benefits:http://www.slge.org/vertical/Sites/%7BA260E1DF-5AEE-459D-84C4-876EFE1E4032%7D/uploads/%7B03E820E8-F0F9-472F-98E2-F0AE1166D116%7D.PDF

That survey primarily involved wage comparison. For benefit compensation they barley scratched the surface. (It's the addendum section at the end.)

Plus their numbers don't seem to match what we are seeing in our local example here. quote:

Table 4 (p. 15) presents the relevant shares for two private sector samples and for the combination of state and local government. The total private firm sample has earnings that are approximately 71 percent of total compensation, while the large-firm private sector sample has an earnings share of 69 percent and the state and local sample has an earnings share of about 67 percent. These shares make clear that benefits are a slightly larger share of compensation in state and local government, although not dramatically different, particularly when compared to larger private sector firms.

For the example we have been discussing here, benefits make up anywhere between 50% at starting to 32% at retirement. With the average being somewhere in the middle depending on how fast earning rise. (Somewhere around 58%.)