“Alameda County has regular free haz mat drop offs for any one who take the trouble to look for them on the web”

Yes Robert, if you read my post I said the following

“I remember the (Oakland) Office of Waste or whatever it is called, offering a free toxic waste drop-off prior to the days of there being a official site and free service.”

As stated “prior” to there being a free Alameda Co. haz-mat drop off station(s).
I was down to the station Ala Co location in Oakland shortly after it opened with a trunk full of wastes. That is why I was so attentive to that Oakland clean up day, and fully realizing how huge the demand would be. As such, after I called Mr. Renteria I didn’t even try to attend Oakland’s special day, knowing it would be overwhelmed. (that day being prior to Ala. Co. opening up their locations)
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Now, as to my statement regarding lowering current Oakland employee’s 2.7% back to the old 2.0% rate for future years of credit.

“United Firefighters of Los Angeles City vs Los Angeles (1989)210 Cal.App.3D 1095, 1107 [Public employees “have a vested right not only to benefits substantially similar to those in effect when they accepted public employment, but also to additional benefits offered later by the public employer”

This case actually speaks mostly to retroactive boosts, but as you can see, assumes that any future lowering of such pension benefits would not be allowed.

I would say this, if anyone really thought the lowering of crediting for future years of service was legal, then they would not be so stuck on always saying it was only for future hires.

Even the people I see filing law suits regarding the illegality of retroactive pension boosts, don’t seem to be talking about the possibility of lower the rate of future accumulation for current employees.

I’m open to anyone suggesting such, but I have not seen anything.
To me, it makes common sense.
You realize the basis for boosting the rate, then six years later, your financial analysis shows it wasn’t feasible, so you lower everyone back to the old 2.0 rate for the rest of their career years. Just like if times change, you can raise or lower salary.

However, it appears there are laws prohibiting this from being done.

I’m open to reading differently.

“f we, now realizing the huge mistake, change the future “back” to the old 2.0 percent, apparently you can only do it for new hires.”

Please do some research and provide some citation for that statement, rather than just keep citing it as a fact.

Alameda County has regular free haz mat drop offs for any one who take the trouble to look for them on the web.

“The only impact was to make older employees hang around and wait for council to approve the program, rather than retire when they had originally planned.”

Exactly.
How many times does the staff and council have to get played like fools?

Don’t they ever sit back and predict how the employees will play their cards?

I once called the person in charge of department regarding the pension hike (2.7%) asking why anyone in their right mind would not have postponed retirement during the second half of 2003 and the first half of 2004.
They answered as though they didn’t really think anyone would have delayed retirement (duh, to pick up $400,000).
They seriously said, they weren’t sure if it had had any impact on retirement dates.

As I always say, do any of the council members ever take out a $5.00 calculator and run a few ballpark numbers?
Or are they totally clueless, relying only on staff for the projections?

I remember the Office of Waste or whatever it is called, offering a free toxic waste drop-off prior to the days of there being a official site and free service.

The had in their budget, about $25,000 to spread the word. I called and asked why in the world would they spend so much advertising for a service that would have a overwhelming response with a mere “free” mention in the newspaper.
They said they wanted it to be known by a widespread audience, hence the citywide mailer.

And the day of the drop-off event.
Yes they came….not hundreds, but thousands of people, cars and trucks filled with toxics. After hours waiting in line, dumping off the toxics by the side of the road, costing the city many times more than budgeted to cover the expense of the professional company doing the collecting.

Made all the weekend news shows, showing the huge debacle their excess advertising had created.
But not to worry, the man in charge of that fiasco, was promoted to the Emergency Preparedness Head, and then onto the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services for all of California.

That would be Henry Renteria. I called him weeks prior to free toxic pick-up day and told him he would be buried with toxic piles, and that everyone had loads of stuff in their garages..
He went forward with his advertising anyway, saying he was required to tell everyone.
BTW, it cost Oakland something like $75,000 extra unbudgeted to pay for the piles of toxics left on the road sides.

Do these people really think these things through?

However, given that most of them will probably be collecting pensions for 22 years, that would equal giving them a 1.18 x salary bonus. (5.4% x 22 yrs)

Say on a $80,000 salary, equal to about $95,000

Now, how does the $95,000 savings compare with getting the higher cost person off the payroll versus just laying off according to seniority?

Can’t believe they really saved $95,000.

“You may wish to contact CalPERS, Dax. I believe the retroactivity requirement is theirs”

Yes, I have heard something like that.
At the very least they highly encourage the retroactivity be included.
Perhaps only because their computers aren’t set up for a more complicated use of multiple percentages for different years of service.

Personally I think retroactivity is simply insane. Why should a person with 34 years, 10 months in May of 2004 be allowed to just stay 2 more months, and suddenly collect a 94.5% pension instead of a 70.1% pension.
A $100,000 employee would collect $24,400 per year extra for about 22 years.
A sudden, unexpected, and un-contributed or paid for, $536,000 Golden Parachute.

If the public had ever been told about this they would have gone crazy.
Like departing employees being given a free house instead of a gold watch.

The only thing that makes me wonder about it being a requirement for ALL CalPERS increases is that one of the dozen cities I called, told me their change was NOT retroactive.

Now, that person I spoke with may have been mistaken. Perhaps I’ll have to call all the cities again and find that one. All the others included retroactivity.

BTW, there is lawsuit in SoCal, Orange County, saying that retroactivity is illegal. I wouldn’t count on it winning.

http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/employer/er-forms-pubs/pubs/manuals/pa-ret-manual/home.xml

Police were a year ahead on their contract and their improved benefit (3% @ 50) took place 7/1/03. Not sure when their contract was approved by City Council, but it was well before Quan was in office.