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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (13033)	8/23/2003 10:30:50 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 306849

RE:"Police fire and teachers are folks who deserve quality pay it seems to me. I know in the case of teachers, they don't get it. what is your definition of ridiculous. In general I am for increasing teacher and other services wages, especially fire depts, and increasing welfare payout levels including any elderly poor. It is only wealthy subsidies I am so fervently against, which includes the elderly because they are the wealthiest demographic according to the concord coalition. We shouldn't be subsidizing the Warren Buffett's of the world imho. " A lot of what David is refering to is the fact that many of these civil workers can say work 20 years, retire at a young age, say 50 and then receive a 80% or 90% pension for the rest of their lives all at taxpayers expense. If they are really clever they can become double and triple dippers at the public trough. This money has to come from somewhere and ultimately it's basically competition of the public sector with the private sector. This payola is the result of non-productivity but must ride on the back of productivity, ultimately crushing it...just what we are seeing in California. When the public sector can out compete the private sector for jobs and payouts then it's just one more step to a welfare state.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (13033)	8/23/2003 11:46:42 AM
From: Les H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

According to Michael Leibig, general counsel for the I.U.P.A., at a time when demands on law enforcement officers are at an all time high, these same officers could lose the right to over $150,000,000 in pay if the FLSA is rewritten by the Bush White House. apbweb.com

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (13033)	8/23/2003 2:45:57 PM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

<<I am not familiar with the pay packages for police and fire, so I'd be interested in knowing more. But I find it difficult to believe the wage and retirement packages are "ridiculous", because only a few years ago there was a huge service crunch in the state where the police depts couldn't get staff.>> The problem with wages for police, fire, teachers is not necessarily the wages themselves, but the high cost of living in their areas. We have this problem where I live, too, and we don't have Prop 13 to blame it on. High housing prices, scarce affordable housing opportunities, yada yada.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (13033)	8/23/2003 5:02:25 PM
From: David Jones	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

....pay packages for police and fire.... My own brother has made over 160K a year the past several years as a fireman. His base is around 100k he'll retire with benefits and 90% of that base after 30 years on the job, he'll be 61. My good friend a fire captain will retire with 82% because he wishes to retire at 55. And other friends a Latinate with a police force is retiring in the next two years at 84% he'll be 52. He said that's plenty. Now how long does the average non public employee have to work, at what age and what percentage of that persons previous wage do they get in the mail every month for the rest of their lives? Retire after fifty, twenty years minimum, 3% for every year after twenty. Non of this possible pre 1999. Thanks to a 45 second discussion on the legislation's floor and a quick John Dow by our forward thinking governor. And you say your for increasing the fire dept's budgets! Well then for people like yourself there's a S.F legislator that wants your vote. He's proposed a bill to establish a local income tax "10% of your current state income tax" for just that reason. So you'll have your Federal, State and Local income tax papers to prepare this coming April if such comes about. Great idea right? Lets all sprout a third tit here in California, after all more tax is the answer. It's for a good cause to allow retirement of public servants that hold high school or AA degrees a comfortable life style after 20 hard years of public work. And don't forget we still have to deal with the current shortfall. No problem there though just increase the State tax then we can increase this Local tax. So it's a taxing we will go, a taxing we will go, HIGH ho the dairy o, the taxing we will go.