by Jack
In order for taxpayers to make an informed decision about the value of their public servants verses the compensation they receive we need to know the total cost of their employment. This much is just common sense, right? For example, how much will their retirement cost? How much is their health insurance? How about cost of overtime and what about the cost of worker’s compensation in case of an injury? Don’t we need to know these all these things to compare costs to other cities and counties and have some sort between pay and value? It’s no wonder that the bulk taxpayers dollars are going almost exclusively to pay public employees with little room left over for maintaining a normal infrastructure or buidling up a sensible reserve fund for those lean tax years or for those occassional unexpected costs.
City of Chico, samples taken from 2011:
Fire Captain – $292,860
City Attorney – $264,640
Division Chief – $240,097
Police Sergeant – $237,254
Fire Apparatus Engineer – $210,103
General Services Dir. – $204,081
Fire Prevention Officer – 209,417
City Clerk – $198,173
Police LT. – $192,817
Police Officer – $189,646
Want to check more city salaries for yourself? Follow this link CHICO SALARIES and BENEFITS You can also search other salaries around the state or in other states.
According to this page the median wage in Chico for 2009 was $42,000.
Remember back when these positions were considered public “service” jobs and implied less, not more, compensation?
Tina, technically you could can say they still are in public service, it just depends on how you interpret servicing the public.
These days we work for these “public servants” instead of the other way around.
“Public servants” get benefits that those in the private sector can only dream of such as pension where they get 80 to 90% or sometimes even more of their highest paid year and when they die their spouse gets the pension.
In the private sector you are lucky to have a crummy 401k and if you’re really lucky a match of 3 or 4% from the employer.
If the private sector can’t afford pensions for their own workers how on earth can they afford to pay for pensions of public sector workers? (It is the private sector that pays for the public sector, after all.)
See this book for the reality of the situation
Plunder: How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation
Public employees have become the new American elite. In the past, Government workers earned less money but had slightly better job security and benefits than Americans working in the private sector. These days, government workers not only earn more than other Americans, but they have vastly superior benefits, including pension plans that often allow them to retire as early as age 50 with 100 percent or more of their final year’s salary. These pensions often to $100,000 a year and come with cost of living adjustments and free lifetime medical care. Getting a government job and sticking with it is like winning the lottery. This plundering of treasuries, made possible by aggressive union tactics and spineless politicians, results in higher taxes and massive debts that ultimately will be borne by our grandchildren. The current situation is “unsustainable.” The problem goes beyond finances. Government unions protect even the worst public employees from accountability. Schools don’t attempt to fire incompetent teachers-and union protections make it nearly impossible to even fire ones accused of abuse and other misdeeds. As government gets bigger and more powerful, government officials have more uncontrolled power over the rest of us-to enrich and protect themselves at the expense of the public good. The public’s servants have truly become the public’s masters.
Dang, no wonder Chico is broke. How can you not go broke when you’re paying police sergeants over $210,000 every year?
Geez, after looking at that Web site don’t you feel like a sucker for being in the private sector. I’m gonna write a song and have Willie Nelson sing it.
It will be titled “Momma Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Private Sector Workers.”
See this http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11135/Plunder+How+Public+Employee+Unions+Are+Raiding+Treasuries+Controlling+Our+Lives+and+Bankrupting+the+Nation.aspx
Bill: “If the private sector can’t afford pensions for their own workers how on earth can they afford to pay for pensions of public sector workers?”
This may be the dynamic that has caused private sector salaries to remain low for so long. We ask companies and the well off to create the wealth…to fund the economy, growth in the economy, innovation, employment, and governments, federal, state, and local through corporate and personal taxes and the taxes of their employees. When government gets too big and the salaries and perks for bureaucrats get too large the natural loser is the lowly private sector employee. There’s a bonus for politicians in this dynamic…they get to make the business owner the bad guy. The public, educated by the same bureaucratic machine, jumps on the blame wagon.
I like Steven Greenhut and read his articles often.
NSA Scandal Separates Liberty Lovers from Poseurs:
I would argue that those pushing for ever bigger government and government power are the Marxists who first embedded and then gained control in the Democrat Party, unions, the black “struggle” community, education, entertainment and the law. In this way they have transformed and held sway for over seventy years, putting Americans to sleep generation by generation by slowly altering thinking and even the very ability to think.
The strategy was very effective and the tactics they have used brilliant. Anyone who has attempted to stand for liberty has always been quickly demonized.
Anyone today who dares stand for liberty becomes a target also but today we have found a new platform on radio and the internet. Young people are seeing their futures in jeopardy. It might be the last gasp but its got legs.
The current occupant of the White House and his grossly tyrannical supporters within government and without have no respect for liberty.
These high salaries have led to a Police Department that is terribly understaffed. That has led to a town that is in rapid decay. It is Police Department policy to ignore certain violations because they don’t have the manpower. The bad guys know this and they are congregating here. Do you feel safe walking around downtown at night?
What makes this even harder to take is at the same time the Police and City Officials are enjoying such large… not large, huge, salaries they are trying to convince downtown building owners and merchants that if they want proper security they need to implement a PBID (Property and Business Improvement District). A PBID can be put into place if a majority of property owners in an area agree to its implementation. A majority is determined by property owned not 1 man 1 vote. So, it can be put into place by 1 man if he owns the majority of the property in the PBID area.
A PBID involves an extra assessment… no lets call it what it is, a tax, on all properties in the PBID area. It doesn’t matter if you wanted the PBID or not, you have to pay. The money is then used for things like security. Weren’t our property taxes suppose to pay for that?
Right now the City of Chico is being very supportive of this idea. So much so that the Assistant City Manager, Police Captain, and several City Council members have attended PBID meetings with the intent of pushing it as a solution to the downtown problems. Why not, it allows them to have their big salaries and they don’t have to provide the services that they are suppose to.
It kind of like hiring a company to provide a service for you. They don’t do what they said they would and they convince you to hire another company to provide the service. Oh, but they still want to get paid as if they were providing the service. It’s disgusting.
A PBID does not address the root of this cities financial problem; unreasonably high salaries. If the City can not provide City services at a reasonable level then they need to take the City bankrupt. Bankruptcy would put all City contracts up for renegotiation, including the union contracts.
Public employees should never have been allowed to unionize!
More Common Sense, you are right.
The situation is utterly absurd and completely out of control when you have police sergeants making a quarter million a year and remember their retirement will be based on that salary.
After a career in local law enforcement these people walk away as multi-millionaires.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to hire the mob and pay them protection money? I say that tongue in cheek but really…
Wow, I’m in shock. I actually agree with the editorial in the current edition of the liberal rag Chico News and Review. You know it has to be a real bad situation when the liberal press turns on the unions and the progressive polititions.
http://www.newsreview.com/chico/reality-check/content?oid=12851717
Common Sense, that is shocking. I can’t imagine the News and Review being so…uh, reasonable? lol That was a good article and they are right. We are far from being another Bell, Ca., but let’s face it we’re headed in that same direction. The city salary package has gotten totally out of proportion to the revenue base that must support it.
Now, this is shocking to have both retired public service employees like Jack and myself agreeing with the liberal N&R editor.
Could there possibly be hope for a better future for our kids and grandkids instead of making them paying for our mistakes? One can only hope, pray and vote out those who believe differently. Votes for local school boards and city councils are just as important as those cast for individuals going to Sacramento and DC.
Wish all of you that are bitching about the pay and benefits had shown up at the City Council meetings when the contracts were reviewed and approved. If you’re a no show and don’t voice your opposition then you have no right to bitch. Same as not voting – no vote – no right to complain. Also to compare 2011 salary and benefits with what will be paid in 2014 is ridiculous. Many cuts have been made. Certainly not as much as we/you might like but these are negotiated contracts which means than the old contracts that expired at the end of 2013 go on and on till a new contract is signed. If I remember correctly (unfortunately I probably wont) the city saved over 2 million by obtaining contract concessions. There are still two unions holding out – the infamous SEIU and the waste water employees (don’t remember their union name). When they come before the Council I’m sure all of you will have read the full text of the contracts, come to the council meeting and voice your opinions.
Hi Stephanie, thank you for posting your comments here. You are so right, that anyone upset with the overcompensation and the City’s bloated budget should come out and support you! You are there fighting for the citizens every meeting and I could not be more proud of you. You are an exemplary citizen who fights for conservative values and you have been an invaluable supporter of Larry Wahl. I can’t think of another person who have contributed more at the city council meetings, including the council people! THANK YOU! -Jack Lee
Stephanie thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts.
Some of us who assemble here don’t have a vote on City Council members so I’m not sure our voices would matter much. Others have been fairly active in local politics.
We are here every day as a hobby with the intention of calling attention to local, state and national issues so they can be discussed. Hopefully we create some curiosity and awareness. The editors are conservative, unapologetically so, but we welcome all opinions.
Hope you will drop by again. We would appreciate a full report from someone as informed as you.