1. Los Angeles Times recently did some reporting on Los Angeles Fire Department. Turns out many of the new hires are sons/nephews/friends of active firefighters. And application process included no public access, like no online application process. So when this was fist reported, LAFD did do online application process, but it was available only for an hour or so. Again, you couldn't have known this unless you had insider connection.
And I heard through friend of friend with connections in LA City. There are Los Angeles Firefighters who collect Disability Pay ON TOP of regular pay after going through some major fire incident. They can claim trauma of the major fire is hardship enough so while they work regular hours and collect regular pay, they can also receive Disability pay.
2. And then there's articles like this:
"Battling treacherous office chairs and aching backs, aging cops and firefighters miss years of work and collect twice the pay"
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drop-20180203-...
excerpt
When Capt. Tia Morris turned 50, after about three decades in the Los Angeles Police Department, she became eligible to retire with nearly 90% of her salary.
But like many cops and firefighters in her position, the decision to keep working was a financial no-brainer, thanks to a program that allowed her to nearly double her pay by keeping her salary while also collecting her pension.
A month after Morris entered the program, her husband, a detective, joined too. Their combined income for four years in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan was just shy of $2 million, city payroll records show.
But the city didn’t benefit much from the Morrises’ experience: They both filed claims for carpal tunnel syndrome and other cumulative ailments about halfway through the program. She spent nearly two years on disability and sick leave; he missed more than two years, according to a Times analysis of city payroll data.
We are all screwed, except for those on PUBLIC pensions.