By Richard Rider Public safety salaries often get lumped together, supposedly reflecting the “critical” need to pay six figure incomes (including overtime, but not counting benefits) for both police and firefighters. But the two occupations are not the same in terms of qualified applicants. Police work is more demanding, less popular with the public and […]

By Jack Dean Last Tuesday night’s Fullerton City Council meeting was interesting. Register columnist Steve Greenhut had predicted that agenda Item #15 would be used to publicly lambaste councilman Shawn Nelson. I had predicted that it would probably just be a lecture on the Brown Act validating the council’s right to be secretive regarding discussions […]

By Jack Dean I met David Walker last September when he spoke at a breakfast meeting of the Orange County Forum. He was part of a four-member team that was traveling the country presenting what they called a Fiscal Wake-up Tour. At that time, he was the Comptroller of the United States and head of […]

The Orange Juice Blog just reported that the City of Santa Ana, California gave a pension boost to its employees last night at its city council meeting: Want more police officers for your neighborhood? Too bad — Santa Ana has got no money. Want your street paved or trees trimmed? Too bad — Santa Ana […]

By Jack Dean Last Thursday I asked that the 25% pension boost allegedly being discussed behind closed doors be put on the agenda for public discussion. Well, I got my wish — sort of. The topic will be on the agenda, all right, but apparently it won’t be there for public discussion purposes. Instead, it […]

By Jack Dean August is the favorite month of the year for public employee unions everywhere because voters are away on vacation or otherwise pre-occupied. And this year it’s even better for them, what with the added distraction of the Olympics being broadcast in mesmerizing HDTV over a two-week period. What better time to launch […]

By Jack Dean This past week a new book was released by a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Here’s the announcement: America has been failed by its government and the nation now faces catastrophic consequences unless that government changes its ways, Wharton management professor Lawrence G. Hrebiniak concludes […]

You know an issue is becoming more widely understood when it starts to appear in comic strips. Here’s cartoonist Scott Adams’ Dilbert strip for August 8, 2008:

Posted by Richard Rider Thoughts on today’s news item in the San Diego Union-Tribune headlined “County’s pension deficit to decline by $293 million” . . . Wonderful news! Sort’a. Two aspects not mentioned in the article: 1. The county’s niggling one BILLION dollar issue of pension obligation bonds earlier this decade to close the deficit […]

By Jack Dean There were two good back-to-back interviews yesterday on the status of defined-benefit plans in the United States. Talking with Alexis Glick on Fox Business Network were former PBGC chairman Bradley Belt and New Jersey actuary and popular columnist with Newark’s Star-Ledger John Bury (also a PensionWatch subscriber) . Both interviews are short […]