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Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

It would be just some one-time outliers, except there are real problems where overtime is counted towards retirement, and workers actively inflate their last years just to bump up their pensions and retirement pay. And none of that kind of thing is protected against in the contracts. So the city and taxpayers are being screwed.

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The last-three-years retirement bowling lanes you're describing need a US-wide overhaul, but it's definitely not an uncommon occurrence in public service admin anywhere in the states, on a City, State and Federal level.

But the overtime budget breakdown for SF (City and County) was roughly 65% transit, 28% maintenance, 5% enforcement. So admin is < 2% of it.

Those numbers in context are interesting. In FY2011/12 the departmental breakdown of employees exceeding set overtime limits were:

- Transportation: 634 employees

- Fire Department: 378 employees

- Public Health: 115 employees

- Sheriff: 85 employees.

Everyone else in the city - combined - came to just 63 employees. In other words, these are critical positions drawing nearly all of the overtime.

I don't know what needs to be done, I'm just an observer. But you would think there would be a state-wide "office of negotiation" to help cities avoid being put in a bidding war between each other, and to avoid the typical contract pitfalls that they sign unknowingly.

Publish a calculating spreadsheet that shows how people's pension benefits are calculated, and what line items (overtime, etc) will or will not be included, and what costs will be incurred to the city if they are/are not. And let people review and find out how it will be exploited.

I'm allergic to incompetence and inertia of this level that gradually ratchets up the cost for everyone.

Government jobs are not a charity to be milked into giving people benefits above and beyond. Government service is supposed to offer job security, not high pay for performance and risk (or at least that's what it generally has come to be). Why are we paying top dollar, along with job security and low performance?

>The last-three-years retirement bowling lanes

Also, the double and triple dipping where someone retires from one government job and then takes another one with a different agency. They collect a pension check and a pay check at the same time while also establishing a second pension account in a different system.

This is ... normal? You get a pension for working a duration at a job. If you want to 'supplement' your income after that point its a free country, isn't it?

In the private sector, with multiple employers, perhaps (though very few offer pensions any more). In the public sector, you would essentially be getting paid twice and multiple pensions by the same employer (the taxpayer).

Yes. Go on. And the problem is ....

The problem is CalPERS. If you are not retired, you should not be drawing from a pension. When a person goes to another government job and starts paying into CalPERS again, the pension needs to stop.

??? The pension is somehow not a contractual obligation? They didn't work the required years? They didn't meet the pension terms?

I think the issue is the 'you should not ...' part. I don't see it as a moral issue.

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