Reed Royalty, president of the Orange County Taxpayers Association, made the following comments Tuesday before the Orange County Board of Supervisors in support of putting chairman John Moorlach’s pension measure on the November ballot:

COMMENTS BY REED ROYALTY TO THE
ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS MEETING
July 29, 2008

I believe you know already that the Orange County Taxpayers Association enthusiastically supports this proposal [to require voter approval of future increases in public employee pensions]. So instead, let me tell you what a couple of real experts on the subject told me.

Mr. Job Nelson, in Mayor Sanders’ office in the City of San Diego, said, “Proposition B [the city’s charter amendment to require voter approval of new benefits] has been very successful. It has stopped the bleeding.”

“Proposition B has made the current negotiations with unions easier, more honest, and more productive for both sides. For example, it ended the practice of ‘trading off’ for benefit increases (by granting half this year, half next year) in order to mask the true costs of the increases by pushing them into the future.”

Voters approved San Diego’s charter amendment by 70%.

Ms. Clare Murphy, Executive Director, San Francisco Employees Retirement System, told me “voter approval has worked very well in San Francisco for many years. It has kept us strongly financed. San Francisco’s retirement system is 107% funded.” (Orange County is 73% funded.)

I asked Ms. Murphy how the voters respond to being asked to approve these benefits. She said, “voters have been responsible stewards. Since 1928, they have voted on 117 benefits proposals. They approved 78 and rejected 39.” She added that “the voters like this responsibility. Three times the voters rejected proposals to change the process.”

I asked her how San Francisco’s employees fare under voter approval. She said, “Our employee benefits are not the richest in the state, but they are on the high end, and they are very fair.”

Mr. Chairman and members, the entire state is watching you today. Your constituents are cheering you on, and so are many of your employees.

This is not the wave of the future. It’s the wave of the present. It has arrived.

Please show the entire state the quality of Orange County’s leadership by putting this charter amendment on the ballot. You will not be the last county to do so.

You can watch the meeting online: Begin by clicking here. In the left-hand box underneath the video, scroll down to Agenda Item #33, then click on its link to jump directly to that part of the meeting dealing with the pension measure.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 9:33 am and is filed under California, Orange County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.