Does anyone understand that these “outliers” such as the Fire Chief and Librarian mentioned in the OP were NOT union members? These retired “public employees” were appointed officials by their respective City Councils (not sure how a city is RI is governed). In CA, when a City Council or County Board of Supervisors releases a job opening for a public official position, they typically contract with a headhunter to search nationwide and interview at least 12-14 candidates. Yes, often they DO end up hiring someone from within the organization for the job simply because of their valuable institutional knowledge and these candidates typically have years of seniority already behind them. The job offer of an appointed public official is entirely negotiable between the Council/BOS and the candidate. This includes pay, medical/dental/vision benefits, leave accrual, etc, which may be entirely different plans or rate of accrual that unions negotiated for their rank and file public-worker members. Since appointed and elected officials do not typically stay on board as long as “rank and file union members,” it was not unheard of for them to be offered vesting in as little as five years with a pension at a higher percentage of their “wage” than the worker-bees. This was a carrot used to steal the “best” public officials away from other locales.
“Civil Service Rules” and “Union Contracts” do not apply here. In other words, your SD elected officials offered and/or agreed upon the City Librarian’s appointment to use a particular formula to calculate their pension (among negotiating and agreeing to other perks at the time of their appointment).
These “appointed outliers” work strictly at the pleasure of City Councils/Boards of Supervisors. Their “contributions” and “personality” can fall in and out of favor with the PTB, depending on WHO gets replaced in the next election cycle (and WHO replaced the incumbent who voted to hire/retain the official).
Don’t mix up the salaries, benefits and pension formulas of elected officials and their appointees with the rank and file public worker union members. The “total pkg” of compensation between the two is as different as night and day.
