Freedomain Radio

I published this about 18 months ago...

Original thread with references and additional items.

Pensions eat up growing portion of city of Decatur's [Illinois] property tax revenue

In 2001, about 30% of the city's property tax levy went into paying down the pensions of its retired police and firefighters. In 2011, 70% of it will go toward pensions...

Mayor Carlos Alvarez and Commissioner Natacha Seijas trounced in Miami-Dade [Florida] recall election

Carlos Alvarez and Natacha Seijas were subjects of the recall vote...after Alvarez pushed through a budget that hiked the county’s tax rate and gave raises to county employees. Seijas voted for the budget.

Both Alvarez and Seijas tried to kill the recall vote in court.

Alvarez and Seijas had assembled war chests of more than half a million between them.

If only they would recall the rest.

We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Every state in America today except for two—Indiana and Wisconsin—has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Consider California, which has the highest budget deficit in the history of the states. The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees—twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida's ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York's.

Irish Bombshell: Government Raids PRIVATE Pensions To Pay For Spending

The Irish government plans to institute a tax on private pensions to drive jobs growth, according to its jobs program strategy, delivered today.

Without the ability sell debt due to soaring interest rates, and with severe spending rules in place due to its EU-IMF bailout, Ireland has few ways of spending to stimulate the economy. Today's jobs program includes specific tax increases, including the tax on pensions, aimed at keeping government jobs spending from adding to the national debt.

The tax on private pensions will be 0.6%, and last for four years, according to the report.

Cook taxpayers owe $108 billion, county Treasurer Pappas says [Chicago, IL]

The average Chicago household now owes a staggering $63,525 to cover local government debt, according to Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas.

Suburbanites are deeply in the red, too, with the average household owing $32,901, according to the treasurer.

Among the biggest reasons: $25 billion in unfunded pension liability.

In comments after an appearance Tuesday before the Civic Federation, a watchdog group that has released somewhat similar numbers in recent years, Ms. Pappas said she was "stunned" to learn that county taxpayers on the whole owe more than $108 billion toward local debt.

The figures were derived from a recently passed debt disclosure law. Ms. Pappas said the numbers have never before been compiled in this fashion.

"This goes well beyond big cities," she said. "These fiscal problems permeate townships, villages, school districts, park districts, fire protection districts and more, and the taxpayers are on the hook."

Overall, she said, municipalities have $61 billion in debt. And educational districts, $20 billion. Cook County owes $18 billion, and various sanitary districts collectively owe $4.4 billion.

In some ways the problem is actually worse than it appears. Ms. Pappas' report does not include totals from 55 of the county's 553 local units of government, which failed to report their debt figures to her.

On pensions, only one-quarter of the Cook County government units involved have at least 80% of the assets on hand needed to pay expected retirement plans for public employees, she said. Most financial watchdogs say 80% or even 90% is appropriate.

Property tax bills anger Cook County homeowners

Congress pays $6.1 million in bonuses as it debates spending cuts

Members of the House of Representatives reported up to $6.1 million in staff bonuses between January and March, giving out bonuses as they debated spending cuts and came within minutes of shutting down government over fiscal problems...

The Austerity Myth: Federal Spending Up 5% This Year

...in the first nine months of this year, federal spending was $120 billion higher than in the same period in 2010, the data show. That's an increase of almost 5%. And deficits during this time were $23.5 billion higher.

Union leader draws lucrative pension perk based on false information [Chicago, IL]

Every month, Thomas Villanova gets a $9,000 reminder of how lucrative it can be to serve as a union leader in Chicago.

The sum is part of a city pension that comes on top of the $198,000 annual salary he is paid to represent the interests of thousands of city workers.

Villanova last worked for the city in 1989 as an electrical mechanic with the Department of Streets and Sanitation, making about $40,000 a year. Yet in 2008 he was allowed to retire at age 56 with a $108,000 city pension. That's because, under a little-known state law, his pension was based not on his city paycheck but on his much higher union salary.

Law gives huge pension perks to union leaders

All it took to give nearly two dozen labor leaders from Chicago a windfall worth millions was a few tweaks to a handful of sentences in the state's lengthy pension code.

The changes became law with no public debate among state legislators and, more importantly, no cost analysis.

Twenty years later, 23 retired union officials from Chicago stand to collect about $56 million from two ailing city pension funds thanks to the changes, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation found.

Because the law bases the city pensions on the labor leaders' union salaries, they are reaping retirement benefits that far outstrip the modest salaries they made as city employees. On average, their pensions are nearly three times higher than what the typical retired city worker receives.

No one from either the state Legislature or city government will take credit for the law, which passed in 1991, and the process of drafting pension legislation in Springfield is so shrouded in secrecy that there's no way of knowing exactly whom to hold responsible.

One-day rehiring nets former Chicago labor leader a $158,000 city pension

Union officials to get $500,000 pensions in Illinois

A labor leader in Chicago is expected to receive pension payments of nearly $500,000 a year, while another could get about $438,000 a year...

...at least eight union officials in Chicago were eligible for what were described as inflated city pensions on top of union pensions for the same period of employment.

Illinois Labor Union ‘Leaders’ Are Stealing Millions from Taxpayers

2 teachers union lobbyists teach for a day to qualify for hefty pensions

Hundreds of NY rail workers part of $1B fraud

Hundreds of Long Island Rail Road employees may have cheated their way to big pensions through a $1 billion fraud by paying off doctors to say they were unable to work, authorities said Thursday as they revealed that some supposedly disabled retirees were spotted regularly playing tennis and golf, shoveling heavy snow and working out for hours at a gym.

UFCW Bosses Busted For Racketeering, Extortion, Money Laundering & Witness Tampering

Union Bosses Don't Answer to You

Despite $55 Million Deficit, Cincinnati [Ohio] Pays Six-Figure Checks for Public Employees’ Unused Sick Time and Leave

Money for Nothing: Taxpayers Foot the Bill for Government Union Work

Taxpayers across the nation are spending millions of dollars to pay the salaries and benefits of government employees to work exclusively for labor unions, an investigation by the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute has found.

The practice is called “official time” in federal law, or “release” time in local labor agreements reviewed by the Institute. At the federal level, it cost taxpayers more than $129 million in 2009, the last year for which figures are available, according to a report from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Gov't paid $600 million in benefits to dead people

The federal government has doled out more than $600 million in benefit payments to dead people over the past five years, a watchdog report says.

Such payments are meant for retired or disabled federal workers, but sometimes the checks keep going out even after the former employees pass away and the deaths are not reported, according to the report this week from the Office of Personnel Management's inspector general, Patrick McFarland.

In one case, the son of a beneficiary continued receiving payments for 37 years after his father's death in 1971. The payments - totaling more than $515,000 - were only discovered when the son died in 2008.

The government has been aware of the problem since a 2005 inspector general's report revealed defects in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. Yet the improper payments have continued, despite more than a half dozen attempts to develop a system that can figure out which beneficiaries are still alive and which are dead, the report said.

"It is time to stop, once and for all, this waste of taxpayer money," it said.

. . .

There are about 2.5 million federal workers who receive over $60 billion in benefit payments from the program each year.

Audit reveals [New York] city paid $11.8 million in housing subsidies to dead people

A shocking new audit from city Controller John Liu discovered that city bureaucrats paid out $11.8 million in rent subsidies in recent years to nearly 4,000 people too dead to enjoy them.

Instead, their landlords or relatives cashed in.

Obama’s Labor Secretary To Headline AFL-CIO Union Organizing Summit Targeting Young Workers

In yet another example the Obama Administration’s pandering to its union cronies while thumbing its nose at the other 88% of America that is union free, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will be headlining (at taxpayer expense) to an AFL-CIO “summit” later this week in Minneapolis. The subject of the conference? How to unionize young people (and others).

U.S. spent $10,612 per person in 2010

The federal government spent $10,612 per person domestically last year, including more than $5,000 per person on direct safety-net programs such as Social Security, unemployment benefits and housing assistance, according to the latest tally from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Broken down by states, Alaskans fared the best, with an average of nearly $18,000 per person in federal domestic spending, followed by Virginia, where a huge defense procurement industry meant the government spent more than $17,000 per person.

Were it a state, the District of Columbia, which is the seat of the federal government, would have topped them all at $102,904 per person in spending.

Nevada got the least federal spending at less than $8,000 per person.

All told, the government spent $3.276 trillion domestically in fiscal 2010. Of that, 27.9 percent went to retirement and disability payments, another 25 percent went to direct payments such as housing assistance or medical care, 20.9 percent went to grants, 15.8 percent was spent on procurement contracts, and 10.5 percent went to salaries and wages.

GSA launches YouTube-inspired contest for how-to videos

The General Services Administration is giving away $5,000 dollars to social media mavens, who create videos to help people understand federal benefits and services.

U.S. Decries Salaries, Staffing in New UN Budget

...too few of its 10,307 workers are being cut and average salaries, currently $119,000 a year, have risen “dramatically.”

...the proposed $5.2 billion UN budget for the next two years would scrap only 44 jobs, a 0.4 percent reduction. After an “onslaught” of add-ons, the 2012-13 budget would rise more than 2 percent to $5.5 billion, he said.

Top incomes in U.S. are in Washington, D.C.

10 Mind Blowing Facts Which Show How Members Of Congress And Federal Employees Are Living The High Life At Our Expense

Documents Reveal Federal Regulators Making More than $200k a Year

$360,000 housing director resigns

Philadelphia councilwoman to collect $478K pension, councilman to collect $367K pension

Port Auhtority Workers Raking in Big Bucks

Port Authority toll collectors not only grab your money at New York-New Jersey crossings, they’re now pulling down stunning six-figure salaries funded by the levies you pay at bridges and tunnels.

Twenty-four toll collectors at the bi-state agency have made more than $80,000 so far in 2011 — payments pumped up by massive overtime. Seven of those workers took in $90,000 or more.

But that’s chump change to the top toll taker.

Warren Stevens has made $102,670 so far this year — $40,614 of it OT.

With overtime paid at time-and-a-half, Stevens averaged about 20 hours of OT per week, or about 130 extra eight-hour shifts per year, an analysis of PA data shows.

Karen DuPree is the No. 2 highest-paid toll taker, making $97,621 — more than a third of it from overtime pay of $37,470.

The annual salaries will only swell since the figures released Friday for all 6,777 PA employees do not include December paychecks.

Princesella Smith, 51, who has made $89,599 working the toll lanes at the George Washington Bridge this year, understandably loves her profession.

“I’m blessed,” she told The Post. “I have a great job, and in this economy it’s great that I can cover everything with my eight hours a day and overs.”

The driving public is a little less enthused, especially after the PA hiked tolls $4 this past summer at its six crossings.

“Any commuter is going to be outraged,” said Cathleen Lewis, a spokeswoman for AAA New Jersey. “Any toll increase should be paying for infrastructure . . . It shouldn’t be paying for excessive salaries.”

Toll collectors — whose ranks have dwindled to 147 as they are replaced by the electronic E-ZPass system — aren’t the only ones cashing in.

Port Authority gardeners are raking in big bucks, too. At least 11 of them bring in annual salaries of more than $80,000.

Michael Finlator has earned $94,106 in 2011 as a gardener. More than $24,000 of that comes from overtime.

Fernando Ippolito, a blacksmith, took in more than $146,000.

Louis LaCapra, the PA’s chief administrative officer, made the most of any agency employee, bringing in $324,940 so far.

Kevin Cottrell, the agency’s top paid cop, made $265,059 in 2011.

The PA — being sued by motorist groups who claim chronically increasing tolls don’t go to pay for transportation projects — is now conducting an audit of its finances.

“The Port Authority is conducting an agency-wide review led by a special committee of its board,” spokesman Ron Marsico said. “That review will address compensation and benefits.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who shares oversight of the PA with Gov. Cuomo, believes more scrutiny must be paid to the agency’s finances and skyrocketing salaries.

“There has to be some rational basis for individuals making their salaries or more than their salaries in overtime,” said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak.

“Management practices need scrutiny at the Port Authority.”

Cuomo’s office did not respond yesterday to a request for comment.

The PA’s 1,300 cops are also getting huge overtime payments, but Robert Egbert, the board of trustees chairman for the union that represents them, said a shortage of cops is to blame. He said the agency hasn’t hired new cops since 2008.

“That’s mismanagement by the Port Authority,” he said. “Their response is it’s cheaper to pay the overtime than to hire the new employees.”

While the Port Authority isn't technically part of the State, it is a beneficiary of State privilege.

Some Port Authority employees getting 80G-plus for not working

The cash just keeps rolling in to Port Authority employees’ bank accounts — even after they quit working.

At least nine retired PA employees have pulled in more than $80,000 apiece this year as compensation for unused vacation, personal and comp time.

Robert Belfiore, the PA Police Department’s retired deputy chief, made just $11,000 in base salary for the year. But he was paid a total of $246,770.

That’s because he made more than $158,000 for “unused time,” which the PA defines as cash for “time such as vacation days, personal days or banked compensatory time.”

He was paid another $80,000 in an unspecified lump-sum payment, which according to the PA could include grievance awards, attendance incentives, uniform allowances or a merit raise.

Belfiore didn’t work for the agency at all in 2011. He said he retired last year.

“I’m not working there anymore,” he said when contacted by phone.

Robert Sbarra, an assistant police chief, made a total of $235,856 in 2011. More than $135,000 of that came from unused time.

Ron Marsico, a PA spokesman, declined to comment on such payouts but said an agency review is under way.

Private Jobs Down 4.6 Million From January 2008; Federal Jobs Up 11.4%

Private-sector jobs are still down by 4.6 million, or 4%, from January 2008, when overall employment peaked. Meanwhile government jobs are down just 407,000, or 1.8%. Federal employment actually is 225,000 jobs above its January 2008 level, an 11.4% increase. That’s right, up 11.4%.

Study: State pension shortfall ballooned in 2010

Recession-plagued states diverted scarce money away from pensions to pay for more immediate concerns, leaving a $757 billion hole in the retirement funds covering millions of public employees...

....34 states failed to maintain safe levels of money in the pension funds, which most experts agree is about 80 percent of long-term obligations. Four states — Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky and Rhode Island — didn't even have 55 percent of the money they'll need in the long run.

. . .

Pensions aren't the only retirement problem. States also faced a $627 billion shortfall in health care services for retirees. Essentially, for every $1 they'll eventually have to pay out in health care, states had set aside only 5 cents.

. . .

Nationwide, some 22.5 million public workers fall under a state pension plan.