UPDATED: Taxpayers Association to File Complaint with Civil Grand Jury for City’s “Corruptive” Fiscal Practices, City Manager Releases Statement

City Manager’s Office Statement on Pension Reform Accomplishments 
 
The Long Beach Mayor and City Council have demonstrated their commitment to pension reform and have achieved significant results. Recently, the Mayor and City Council have successfully established labor agreements with several employee groups that include pension reform, and the City is in negotiations with the remaining employee groups. Below are some of the recent successes Long Beach has achieved:

• The Mayor and all City Councimembers have led by example by picking up their full 8 percent of the employee PERS contribution rate.
• The City Auditor, the City Attorney, City Prosecutor, and City Clerk have agreed to pick up an additional 1.8 percent towards their employee contribution rate. – The Attorneys Association, the Prosecutors Association, and the unrepresented management employees in the Auditor’s Office have agreed to pay an additional 2 percent towards their employee contribution rate starting this year. 
• The Long Beach Managers Association agreed to a new tier for new employees with a formula of 2 percent at 60, three-year average final compensation, and full employee pick up. 
• The Confidential Association agreed to a new tier for new employees with a formula of 2 percent at 60, three-year average final compensation, and full employee pick up. 
• The Attorneys Association agreed to a new tier for new employees with a formula of 2 percent at 60, three-year average final compensation, and full employee pick up. 
• The Prosecutors Association agreed to a new tier for new employees with a formula of 2 percent at 60, three-year average final compensation, and full employee pick up. 
• Unrepresented Management Miscellaneous employees and Unrepresented Non- Management Employees will have a new tier for new employees with a formula of 2 percent at 60, three-year average final compensation, and full PERS pick up. 
• The City reached impasse with the Long Beach Association of Engineering Employees and implemented the City’s last, best and final offer of a new tier for new employees with a formula of 2 percent at 60, three-year average final compensation, and full employee pick up. 
• The tentative agreement with the Police Officers Association contains significant pension reform, the details of which will be available once negotiations are concluded. 
Changes to employee pensions require negotiations with employee organizations, several of which have long-term agreements with the City and do not have open contracts. In fact, some of the pension reforms achieved have been negotiated with groups that had closed contracts. The Mayor and City Council are firm in their resolve that pension reform is in everyone’s best interest and the City continues to negotiate with our employee organizations to achieve this goal.  

 
August 29, 2011 7:00am | The Long Beach Post has learned that the Long Beach Taxpayers Association will file a complaint this week with the Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury seeking “judgment on years of corruptive practices that have resulted in the lack of fiscal discipline in managing the City’s finances,” according to the Association’s leaders Kathy Ryan and Tom Stout.

In a statement released to the Long Beach Post, Ryan and Stout claim, “The recent labor negotiation between the Police Officers Association and the City of Long Beach has added insult to injury.  The lack of will by management to negotiate meaningful pension reform for the people became the last straw…”

The Civil Grand Jury, according to their web site, “acts in a ‘watch-dog’ capacity, by examining carefully and completely, the operations of various government agencies within Los Angeles County…Any private citizen, county official, or county employee may present a complaint in writing to the Civil Grand Jury. The Civil Grand Jury limits its investigations to possible felonies and to charges of malfeasance (wrong doing) or misfeasance (doing a lawful act in an unlawful manner) by public officials. Any request for an investigation must include detailed evidence supporting the complaint. If the grand jurors believe that the evidence submitted is sufficient, a detailed investigation will be held.”

According to Ryan, the Association will present a complaint claiming that Long Beach city leaders:

– “Allowed the unfunded pension liability to get to an unmanageable $1.2 billion dollars without notifying the citizens of Long Beach before February of 2011.” 

– “Allowed the in-lieu pick up by the city/citizens to continue until the present, written into each subsequent contract, when it was meant as a concession in one contract instead of raises.  This has cost the city/citizens millions over the years in services and infrastructure.”

– “Approved new retirement ages in 2002, when the City Charter states the ages to retire to be 65 for miscellaneous employees and 55 for police and fire.  Even though the options given by CalPERS, when the pensions were enhanced by the City Council in 2002 did not include retirement ages of 65 and 55, but the City Council had an alternative; they could have done nothing and left the status quo and not enhanced the pensions, leaving the retirement ages as is.”

More to come…

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