PLACE, THE 2920 E COAST HWY , CORONA DEL MAR
RUBYS DINER 1 BALBOA PIER , NEWPORT BEACH
Only 3 in the past 60 days...not too bad.You cannot blame the Full-Time Lifeguards for their $154k a year average compensation package.
Nor can you blame that retired 51 year old Lifeguard from getting his $108k a year pension pay, for the rest of his life.
I mean, you can’t fault them for asking for it right? It’s up to the City Council to give, or not to give.
Just like if my 4 ½ year old daughter asks me to borrow my Harley. It’s up to me if I say yes or no right?
Well, the previous City Councils, who when asked if the Lifeguards could have the same pensions as the Police and Fire receive, would just laugh and would give them Sunglasses or Suntan lotion. And the Lifeguards would go away happy, as if they had just received bars of gold.
But this time was different. This time, former Councilman Tod Ridgeway was going to be gone, former Councilman Dick Nichols was up for re-election, and former Councilman Steve Bromberg had been off the dais for almost a year, all vehemently against any such Police/Fire-like pensions for the Lifeguards. The Lifeguards never had the votes to get a generous Pension approved.
No, this time when the Lifeguard’s contract was up in the summer for 2006 they knew what they possibly had on their hands and they waited. Waited for Tod Ridgeway to term out, waited for Dick Nichol’s re-election bid, and waited a Union/Pension friendly City Council.
So the Lifeguard Management Union, along with the Firefighter Union, spent $31,807.65 on their slate of candidates. The Lifeguards even walked precincts, knocked on doors trying to pitch their candidates…and guess what?
Every one of the Lifeguard/Fire Union endorsed candidates won (the Barbara Venezia/Leslie Daigle race was different because they endorsed BOTH).
So after the November 2006 City Council race was over, the negotiations restarted in earnest and surprise, surprise (in your best Gomer Pyle voice), on March 13, 2007, the new Newport Beach City Council, the new Union-loving City Council, voted 5-2 in favor of give the full-time Lifeguards the Retirement benefit of 3%@50.
And they made it retroactive to July 2006.
Talk about a gift of public funds, all in exchange for what…walking precincts? But this is where it gets a bit weird…
A very connected, and EXTREMELY reliable source told me, when he asked then-newly elected Councilman Mike Henn, why would he do such a thing? How could he possibly vote in favor of giving Newport Beach’s Lifeguards such juicy benefits and pensions that EVERYONE knew could not be sustained.
Now-Mayor Mike Henn responded, how could he not? After all, they had walked precincts for him, they donated money to him, and they helped him get elected. He felt like he owed it to them to give them this juicy pension.
Let me repeat.
Now-Mayor Mike Henn felt like he owed giving the Full-Time Lifeguards the 3%@50 pension for helping him get elected.
The Lifeguards essentially bought his vote.
And if that 51 year old recently retired lifeguard lives until the age of 80 years old, his thank you present will be around $3,132,000.00.
So here is where I apologize for some (not all) of the…um…not-nice things I have written about Councilmembers Steve Rosansky and Leslie Daigle in the past because they were to two no votes, back in 2007, who knew that this type of gift of public funds would be unsustainable. Now keep in mind that in the 2006 election, Steve Rosansky was not up for re-election and Leslie Daigle had been victim of that dreaded “Dual Endorsement” for her re-election bid.
So from the March 13, 2007 City Council minutes, Leslie Daigle said that she “expressed concern that the pension benefits will have a fiscal impact beyond this budget year…that she does not support the policy change.”
At the time Mayor, Steve Rosansky then followed that “he will vote against the contract because of the 3%@50...and that it was given to safety personnel at a time when the stock market was rising and the cost of funding these plans was very low, but conditions have changed. The tide is turning in the State as far as providing enhanced pension benefits, and this is not the appropriate time to move against that trend.”
Of course, completely ignoring the common sense and fiscal prudence coming from Daigle and Rosansky, permanent City Employee Don Webb, of the “all the City Employees deserve their pensions” fame, moved to approve…and the rest is history, viral, and whatever else you want to call the Local/State/National/International news that the Newport Beach Full Time Lifeguards have…um…”enjoyed.”
So…let that be a lesson for all you amateur Politicos. If you want to get $3 million dollars for not working (assuming you live to 80 years old), wait for that perfect storm and do what the full time Lifeguards did.
Walk some precincts, knock on some doors, spend some big dough, and WHAMO! You’ll get that friendly City Council who will vote for your gift of public funds…just because they owe it to ya.
Back in grade school, high school, and college, I surfed a lot. I also swam a lot and was a junior lifeguard, but not for very long.
Why?
Because there is no way my father would have let me pursue that kind of stuff as a career. You see, he was a Civil Engineer, with his Master’s Degree. Shoot, my mom even told me once that he would have gotten his Doctorate had I not been born…but I digress…
So I had to study, study, and then study some more. In the summer, when I wasn’t surfing or swimming, I’d be studying. And now today, I run the books for mom and pops as well as for $100 million dollar companies.
But he primarily kept my nose in the books because back then, being a lifeguard could never be a career, could never pay well, and could never lead to good things. How could it right?
Well…fast forward to 2011 and the City of Newport Beach.
City Manager Dave Kiff, with his budget slashing Conan the Barbarian Axe, is proposing to reduce the full time Lifeguards from 13 to 9. And some people in the City are actually upset at this…even my good friend Barbara Venezia wrote about this from the Lifeguard’s point of view in the OC Register.
So let me inject my spin into this Safety vs. Pension Lifeguard argument.
But let me start somewhere else.
Do you know that the top paying LIFEGUARD, with benefits, received over $210,000?
The next highest paid LIFEGUARD, with benefits, $203,481.76?
In fact, out of the 14 full-time LIFEGUARDS on payroll in 2010, the poorest one received with benefits…wait for it…$98,160.65.
The average salary, with benefits, for those 14 LIFEGUARDS, was $154,857.95. And that includes $400 each a year for sun screen…
Is that a lot?
Ok, so what do they do for that money?
Today just happens to be a very warm day. So are those guys out saving lives? Sure they are, but there is also a large pool of Lifeguards on Call to draw from who make $16 to $22 an hour with no benefits. THEY man the towers and THEY do the lionshare of the rescues.
But the full time guys, well, in the offseason, typically two are in trucks - maybe three - one at CDM, two others are in trucks roaming between the wedge and the SA River. The rest are either doing admin/office work, not driving around....they are not on a TOWER. They are painting towers, ordering uniforms, answering phones ("how's the surf today?), overseeing dispatch, training people on CPR or prepping for Jr. Guards (getting the trailer ready).
So we need those Full Time Lifeguards earning at total, including benefits, of $2,168,011.39 to do this? We need an average of $154,857.95 to paint a lifeguard tower, answer phones, train people in CPR and training Junior Lifeguards?
Obviously not, as City Manager Dave Kiff, the Newport Beach Fire Department Chief, and the Newport Beach Chief Safety Officer had decided as they propose cutting the 13 down to 9.
And as far as I am concerned, this is the furthest thing away from a Safety vs. Pension issue. It’s just cutting some serious, and long overdue, fat from the City.
Ooohhhh…forgot to mention their juicy pensions didn’t I?
Ok, consider that two recently retired Lifeguards now receive in excess of $100k a year in pensions plus medical FOR LIFE. One guard recently retired at age 51 to receive $108,000 a year, plus medical, FOR LIFE.
So don’t feel soo bad for those poor lifeguards.
Also think about this, if you are drowning in Newport Beach waters, would you want a 47 year old full time lifeguard, who normally jockeys an office, or mans the phone, or doing admin/office work to come get you, or would you want a very fit 23 year old Lifeguard-On-Call/UCI water polo player to drag your butt out of the water?
Think David Hasselhoff versus Pamela Anderson?
So by the time I get to retire at the age of, let’s say, 70…that same 70 year old retired Newport Beach Lifeguard would have already been “earning” over $108,000.00 a year from his pension for 20 years.
…and my father didn’t want me to be a lifeguard.
Enjoy the sand.
Compared to Mayor Mike Henn, I’m a mid level pencil pusher. He was a CFO for two very large public companies; I’m just a Corporate Controller for small private companies. He filed quarterly 10-Qs to the Securities and Exchange Commission. I file quarterly payroll tax returns to IRS and sales tax returns to the State Board of Equalization. He’s the star Quarterback in the NFL, I’m the third stringer QB in the Arena Football league.
So when I read that based on the Fiscal Year End (FYE) 2009 California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPers) report, the City of Newport Beach has an unfunded pension liability of $134 million dollars, as well as an unfunded $60 million dollar Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB), or Health Insurance et al., liability, I cannot help but wonder. Why isn’t Mayor Henn’s head exploding?
What does all those numbers above mean?
What it means is that if every City Employee, every Police Officer, or every Fireman (or Fireperson) and Lifeguard eligible to retire retired today, the City of Newport Beach would be almost $200 million dollars short on paying for their “Well-Deserved” (former Councilman Don Webb’s paraphrased words) post retirement Pension and Health Insurance benefits for the rest of their lives.
Let me repeat in terms that even a Third Stringer like me can understand.
The City of Newport Beach is $200 million dollars in the hole to pay for the Pension and Health Insurance for all of its present, and future, retired employees.
And that is based on the June 30, 2009 report by CalPers, released in December of 2009, which leads me to a couple of questions.
With question #1, one cannot help but wonder, after an election season where Pension Liability was a huge topic, where Council candidate Ed Reno brought up privatizing more City Functions (Trash Service as an example), where the size of government was questioned, did the City wait until after the November 2010 elections, 11 months AFTER the report was released, to drop this little tidbit of information?
If we, the voters, would have found out that the City was $200 million dollars in the hole to pay for the bloated, yet “deserved”, pensions and health insurance of its employees, would the election results have been different?
Perhaps.
But couple this with the $128 million dollar loan to build the City Hall/Civic Center, and the City of Newport Beach faces a debt service of over $328 million dollars which will choke even the most robust bank accounts, even the most robust companies.
Is being $328 million dollars in debt a good thing to be during these tough economic times?
Question #2, how far will the City go to alleviate this problem? And how much will the Public Employee Unions concede to prevent this fiscal bubble from inevitably bursting?
Contributing 3.5% to 8% to their own pensions will not work. Having them raise their retirement age from 50 to 55 won’t do anything either.
Only having employees go from the traditional CalPers system to a “defined-contribution” program similar to a 401k, as Mayor Henn suggests, would help, but instead of hoping that it could be done “well down the road,” it needs to be done immediately.
Doing it “well down the road” would be like ordering more lifeboats for the Titanic long after the ship has sunk.
Will the Public Employees, Firefighters, Lifeguards, Police Officers, and Trash guys be willing to dump their juicy pensions for a normal 401k plan like you and I do?
And what will Mayor Henn and the rest of the Newport Beach City Council do if they won’t and “concede” to just contributing 9% to their pensions?
Here’s what I would love to see happen.
-The City Council draws a line in the sand and says that being $328 ($128 million for the City Hall/Civic Center and $200 million in unfunded Pension and OPEB liabilities) million dollars in debt is enough.
-The City Council immediately implements a “Defined-Contribution” program similar to a 401k, and raise the retirement ages to 60 years old.
-If the Unions don’t agree, then let the layoffs begin.
Yes, I repeat, let the layoffs begin.
Just like in Colton, CA and in Camden, NJ.
You read that right, the City Council need to start acting like Fiscal Conservatives (like many claim to be) and take the necessary actions to ensure that the next bubble that bursts isn’t Newport Beach’s.
And Mayor Henn needs to step up to the plate to keep the Newport Beach ship from sinking.
"Unfortunately, there has been an ongoing history of disregard for the property and policies of Hoag Hospital," according to the letter from Dotty Dozal of the Hoag Chemical Dependency Recovery Center.
"These behaviors include: theft, destruction of property, smoking on campus, profanity, congregating in groups outside of the building rather than attending the meeting, gathering in restricted areas and other disruptive behaviors."
Wow...
