Our retired head San Diego city librarian made $139,000 salary as an employee. She now receives $227,000 in pensions, PLUS has another major pension we can’t quantify. Contrast that with a Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps — a FOUR STAR general position. That general’s pension for 30 years often arduous and dangerous service is about $149,000 a year.
Top pensions 2011
Assistant city attorney $307,758
Investment officer $255,509
Fire battalion chief $244,435
Assistant police chief $242,947
City librarian $234,091<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
"Public employee pensions and other retiree benefits (e.g free healthcare) suck the life out of the taxpayer who will never see such outrageous benefits. Here's some simple math: $65,000 per year + $12,000 per year for free healthcare for 25 years of retirement = $2,000,000 payout! (A lottery hit) Unsustainable for the poor taxpayer who's services are being cut to fund this black hole. This ain't "middle class" stuff folks and I'm already paying my "fair share" of it."[/quote]
Link? Let's look into this some more, shall we? Since pension benefits are paid as a percentage of the employee's salary, this number does not make any sense.
Clearly, your sources have been grossly misleading, to say the least. Still waiting for your response on that "teachers fighting the union" nonsense.
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And how about stuff like this:
http://www.sdcta.org/Uploads/Documents/Proposition%20Z.SD%20Unified%20Bond%20Measure%20PUBLIC.pdf
No, to you, it's all the unions' fault. That is nothing less than pure propaganda.
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And let's get one thing perfectly clear, once again. The pension benefits come from the pension funds, not "the taxpayers' pockets." These pension benefits are paid out of separate pension funds that are financed by: investment returns (the greatest portion), employer contributions (calculated as a percentage of *current* employees' wages/salaries), and employee contributions (usually 9% of their wages/salaries for the higher-paid public employees, which is subject to increases going forward). Public employers have also been reducing pension benefits, and public employees will be increasing their contributions going forward, so your claim that "taxpayers" are the only ones taking the hit is pure bullshit. DB pensions are a form of deferred compensation; there is no "lottery hit" here.
