(Full disclosure: John B. Greet is an employee of the City of Long Beach and a Law Enforcement professional. He is not compensated for his contributions to lbpost.com. His views are entirely his own and do not represent the official positions of the City of Long Beach or any of its Departments, nor are they intended to)
On Wednesday April 28, 2010, The Press-Telegram published a lead editorial entitled “Unfunded Liabilities”. Readers can view the editorial by clicking here.
The thesis of the editorial was clear: Unfunded public employee pensions are creating a financial crisis for our State and local governments. A crisis that, if not addressed in a constructive manner, and soon, could result in a cost to taxpayers of anywhere between $182 and $325 billion, depending upon whose figures we use.
This may come as a surprise to some but as both a taxpayer and a public employee I take no issue, whatsoever, with the Press-Telegram’s thesis, other than its being, perhaps, too restrictive. The public employee pension outlook in California is, indeed, dire and needs to be addressed yesterday. But we are not going to be able to find a constructive solution to this challenge by lodging ad hominem attacks against public employees.
Read, listen to or watch almost any story from almost any source on this topic and you will find public employees routinely accused of being “greedy”, “self-serving” or “uncaring.”
Those Long Beach public employees I have the honor and privilege of knowing and working with are none of those things. To a person they are hard working, reliable and dedicated professionals who do the best job they can, using the tools and resources they are given to work with. They are moms and dads, husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, just like most everyone in the private sector. They have mortgages and rents, home, medical and car insurance premiums and food and utility bills, just like most everyone in the private sector.
The only thing that truly differentiates our public employees from their private sector counterparts is the source of the funding for their pay and benefits. Public employees are compensated using public funds, as is appropriate. The products and services our public employees produce and provide are of direct benefit to, and provided at the request of, the public that they serve.
In this analysis, the public is both customer…the consumer of that which is produced and provided for them…as well as employer…providing the funds with which the products and services are produced and (ideally) setting the standards by which the performance of public employees is to be measured.
As workers and if they so choose, public employees have no less a right to collectively bargain for wages and benefits than do any group of employees in the private sector. Public employees have no less a right to obtain the best pay and benefits they can negotiate from their employer than do private sector employees. As mentioned, public employees have families to feed, clothe and house and other bills to pay just like everyone else.
Because our public employees are consumers of products and services in their own right, the compensation they receive is, in turn, invested in the communities in which they live and/or do business. Not all of our employees live in Long Beach but a good number of them certainly do and they all spend a significant percentage of their incomes in State sales and income taxes and local property, sales and other taxes that directly benefit and support our community.
Because this is true, those who take exception to the level of pay and benefits City public employees are receiving should not take issue with those employees but, rather, with those on the other side of the bargaining table… those who are bargaining on behalf of City Government… on behalf of the taxpayers. In the collective bargaining environment, City public employees can only receive the pay and benefits that City negotiators agree to offer them. It is City negotiators who are charged with controlling the costs of City labor, not employee collective bargaining representatives.
It took the Press-Telegram till the last sentence of its editorial to mention: “We need to… choose leaders who won’t make promises no one can keep.” True enough. Elections have consequences and this phrase is just as factual here in Long Beach as it is at the county, state and federal levels. The Mayor and Councilmembers we elect to represent us in turn appoint others to represent them. Some of those appointees end up at the bargaining table across from our employee union representatives, engaged in the extremely difficult and painstaking process of striking a balance between the interests of the taxpayers (who are paying the bills) and those of the employees (who produce the products and provide the services the taxpayers request or require).
The Press-Telegram opines: “…the fiscal collapse of governments small and large won’t help California’s public workers in their retirement,” and I would agree. But crafting reasonable and equitable pension reform alone will not solve these fiscal challenges either. Pension reform must be accompanied by a renewed sense of fiscal responsibility in government across the board. Governments throughout our state must, once and for all, stop trying to be all things to all people. Taxpayers are funding far more government provided social programs and services than government was ever intended to provide or support.
These, too, represent unfunded liabilities and unless and until we adopt and follow a more comprehensive policy of fiscal responsibility throughout all aspects of local, state and federal government, all of the pension reform in the world isn’t going to save us.
I very much welcome your questions and your comments.