Are L.A.'s ERIP Pensions a Bargain to City? See the list.

In order to cut payroll costs, the City made the early retirement program with an incentive. It's one of those "hard to refuse" deals that traded having to pay a worker a salary for showing up every day on the job for now paying the worker for not working anymore. Some money was added as a bonus for taking the deal and it was supposed to be limited to 2400 employees. It makes you wonder how good the deal turns out for the city when you also consider the recent announcement that several hundred of the approved participants were employees that were not paid out of the general fund and these retirements will not reduce the deficit calculation.

The revelation makes you wonder how well the planning was done in this area, with so many annual pension figures rising above the $100,000.00 mark.

"City Pensions Since ERIP: The Facts, The Figures, The List" Written by Ron Kaye, Saturday, 06 February 2010, as appearing in the blog, "OurLA.org" at http://ourla.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1447&Itemid=3233 (The story also posting on the blog, RonKayeLA.com)

City Council appears fearful of unions on Early Retirement issues.

MORE HAPPENING IN CITY HALL AS CM APPEAR TO BE SELLING OUT THE CITY - again - and not GETTING TOUGH ON WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. The fear of unions and the potential votes here is greater than their fear of city bankruptcy. The City of L.A. spends a million dollars more that is collected EVERY DAY.

The mayor said the Early Retirement agreement will be vetoed if Council approves it- and Tony was the one that put that agreement together in the first place back in June. But Council is working TO GO AROUND THIS and just doesn't seem to be able to do what needs to be done.

Tony did not want to lose union support and came up with a way to keep jobs and keep the unions happy. Tony said way back in the beginning of the year that layoffs were needed but only a few at most have been laid off to this day. Instead, Early Retirement, allowing retiring up to 5 years earlier was the plan to cut out jobs. So you get the Employee roster cut down, but they moved over to "retired" and now don't do any work but still get paid a lot. Not a good approach and this was from day one.

Tony has seen the light, being told that the savings on this would be about $12 million this year, just a fraction of what they orignally planned. But they did not consult the profession number crunchers and did not WANT TO BELIEVE reality.

For Tony, You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't keep union people on jobs, happy and collecting raises, while the city is sliding down a financial hole from uncontrolled spending that was allowed to go unchecked for years.

Well more is to come on this story, but don't expect the city council to be the "bad guys" to the unions. The CMs want to cover their own asses and point fingers elsewhere. We can see how the mayor handles this one; if he chooses the city's financial survival over his union buddies.


Try giving a look to the blog, WWW.RONKAYELA.COM - (and its many other items posted that will show you MORE city nonsensical and corrupt behavior- some sneaky and some right out there in the open that you just don't recognize.)

"L.A. in Crisis: Do They Have a Clue? Do You?" http://ronkayela.com/2009/09/la-in-crisis-do-they-have-a-cl.html By Ron Kaye on September 16, 2009 10:06 PM
This blog really gets into some frank opinion and usually is accurate and representative of a more sensible way that city council should go, be does not.