[quote=jpinpb]
I’m not sure how some of you have the ability to judge and quantify what and how much cops and firemen should make. There are other cities paying far more than SD, by the way.
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Unfortunately, the harsh reality of how this is usually is a random number is proposed and keeps revising it upward or downward until there is an equilibrium between applicants and positions. If there is a long waitlist of applicants, it generally means that that equilibrium hasn’t been met. Happens all the time elsewhere…Short term, comp packages are exaggerated in that in a downturn, comps got much lower than perhaps market rate and bubble times, comps go much higher than perhaps market rate…Eventually under steady-state, they sort of normalize. Tech sort of works that way (the entire outsourcing versus not outsourcing debate)…
Unfortunately, the way things are, things are sticky on the way down…
[quote]
And for those that are harping on privatizing, I see that some private companies have been a huge success. GM, airlines, bank, insurance companies. And guess what. The taxpayers ended up paying for GM bailout, banks, etc. So I doubt privatizing is going to be the answer either.
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GM, banks, insurance,etc should have never been bailed out either…GM/Chrysler specifically…Furthermore, at least part of the the reason why they got a second life was specifically during BK, they were able to renegotiate with labor and got concessions (not to mention that the stuff they started to put out was…well significantly better than before)….
Airlines were bailed out specifically after 9/11 but also specifically were able to renegotiate with pilots/flight crews/etc. Speaking of airlines…Benefits went significantly down…Talk to retiree UAL pilots (one on my neighbor)…..And they will curse/ fit about how their promised pensions were slashed after the insurance kicked in..But….UAL is still around isn’t it? And despite the lowered benefits paid, I don’t think you can say that this has compromised the safety of airline travel. (I mean, I don’t see planes crashing left and right…)…
And that’s how it’s going to work…Personally, I think all this debate is really, well not going to do anything. Because frankly, imho concessions are never going to be made until the sxxx has hit the fan, there is no more money left in the piggie bank, and then the choice will be leaving with $0 or leaving with 50% of what was promised. I guess that’s the ultimate fate of our city and state..It’s a mean thing to say, but actually for city/state, the best time to be forcing these drastic issues is during an economic downturn. No way in hell would a city/state be able to get away with doing this if the economy is good and there is ample opportunity elsewhere in private sectors,etc…And like everyone else who works (private/public sector), in an economic downturn, if one wants to work, one’s just going to have to put up with these cuts…
Many financial planners have predicted the “death of the pension system” well back in early 2000’s, since it’s not a sustaining model…Unfortunately, this will happen with the public sector one way or the other. Local/state governments can’t keep making these promises while at the same time not raising taxes (or calling them “fees”)….
