In the city of Bakersfield, CA, voters improved a simple, but important measure to reform city worker pensions.
City of Bakersfield Measure D
Shall the City of Bakersfield adopt the following law: Effective January 1, 2011, new City of Bakersfield sworn pubic safety employees will pay 100% of their employee pension contribution and be eligible for a maximum retirement allowance with the Board of Administration of the Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) at a 2% at age 50 formula based on their average salary calculated over 36 highest paid consecutive months.
What this means is that new public safety workers in the city have to go back to long-running nice pension benefits, instead of the extravagant ones the unions have won in recent years. Its a return to a sustainable benefits package and and en to some of the ever ever-escalating costs that have been breaking the city budget.
A LOT of othe cities and counties in around the nation should emulate this measure. The first step to reigning in out of control pension costs is to stop digging the hole deeper by putting all new hires back on a sensible benefit package.
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