You hear a lot of rubbish about how county employees are underpaid (ha) and that if they don’t get big raises they’ll quit and swarm down to Sonoma County (as if).
I did 24 years with the county and never saw a single example of an underpaid worker, but I saw scores I thought were overcompensated. The idea county employees are going to quit their jobs, sell their houses and move to Sonoma County (where they couldn’t get hired anyway) is hilarious.
County workers are mostly overpaid. Not one in a hundred has the gumption to go look for work anywhere else; they’re all just thrilled to have landed a lounge-potato job where they can’t be fired no matter how incompetent they are, and some day will get a large, fat, deluxe pension. And believe me, they will.
County drones and the bozos from SEIU still try peddling the myth that government workers are “public servants.” What a laugh. There may have been a time when government workers had selfless, altruistic motives, but it was so long ago no one alive can actually remember it. Today the notion people working for the government are altruistic would be a really funny joke, but without a punchline. Mendocino County workers are lavishly compensated and their pensions are gaudy. Proof?
A new website has it all, and it’s an eye-popper. Go to www.transparentcalifornia.com to see how a lot of retired local county workers live like Saudi Sheiks thanks to giveaways by county administrators.
A bright, hard light is shining down on Mendocino County’s retirement system. If it isn’t going broke it’s a miracle, because the benefits the system pays out would wobble Wall Street, plunder OPEC and sink Fort Knox.
Examples:
Meredith Ford, a veteran county desk jockey, retired after a few decades of stress-free employment and is now being awarded $138,000 per year for her devoted efforts. Please applaud. She served us well and true.
Next, Tony Craver. Remember our obese and jovial sheriff? He spent eight years courageously negotiating raises for himself and other cops, and was otherwise content having his picture taken at Calpella Elementary’s annual Drug Awareness Day. He’s paid $130,000 a year for the rest of his life, which is being lived in Idaho. Hats off to Tony!
The list goes on. The money rolls out. The retirement fund slips into a pinkish-red zone. The remedy?
It’s time for you common Ukiah people doing the private corporate thing with the windfall profits and the big write-offs and the vast portfolios to pony up. It’s time for fat cat taxpayers to take on second jobs and work weekends. We need to beef up the tax base and shore up the retirement system so Dave Bengston (annual take down: $116,000) can quit lying awake at night wondering if he can afford yachts and beachfront homes in Hawaii.
All you slouchers at Big O Tires and Ellie’s Mutt Hut should do extra shifts. Those employed at Brookside Retirement Home, Triple S Camera and the Savings Bank should work 70 hour weeks, and then take part-time landscaping jobs. The county needs the tax revenue. Won’t you do your part to help pensioners on fixed incomes?
Most of the top grossers in the Powerball pension jackpot are ex-cops. Law enforcement cats can hit the hammock at age 50 with the reward dial set to Maximum. Cool, huh? From middle age to old age to the graveyard at $100,000 a year.
But at least local cops do something, like direct traffic at the Homecoming Parade and give directions to bums trying to find Plowshares. What did Meredith Ford ever do for the county except occupy a desk? Oh right: she attended meetings and made phone calls. She went to seminars and went to lunch.
We will give her nearly $1.38 million in the next 10 years. Tell your kid to quit school and get lots of jobs with the county.
It isn’t Meredith Ford’s fault she’s living like Imelda Marcos. Would you decline if Mendocino County shoveled $11,500 a month your way? Me too. The problem is that Mendocino County has rigged the system, forcing citizens to go without shoes so Tony Craver can wear mink underpants.
The political process tilts toward ever-more goodies for government employees. A candidate who suggests pay hikes and increased benefits gets the backing of the biggest voting bloc in the county, the workers. That candidate wins and promises are kept. Elected officials also profit because they now work for the county, and salary and pension hikes go to them, too.
It’s a corrupt, malignant, insider game. No other interest group — not environmentalists, not farmers, not business owners — has the kind of clout government workers have. The idea a small group of county employees can elect the people it later negotiates salaries with smells funny. When you sample the results, it stinks.
By the time citizens realize the county’s been looted it’s too late. The supervisors who voted for deluxe wage and pension plans have all left office and are now living (on their own fat county pensions) in Florida or the Bahamas or wherever they want. Venus, maybe. There’s no one around to even blame, as if it would help.
The Mendo rabble, always heated up about corporate lobbyists getting million dollar payouts in Washington, will of course say nothing about how they themselves are getting raped by a county system that feeds on ignorance and/or indifference.
Earlier in this column I said these county pensions were like a joke without a punchline. But I gave it some thought, and it’s not true. Here’s the punchline:
Each month almost every local pensioner gets a full check from Social Security.
(Tom Hine toiled on the county chain gang a quarter century and now reaps $37,000 a year, plus Social Security. TWK continues to seek gainful employment.)
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From Transparent California:
- Edmund G Brown Jr., Governor, State of California, 2014: $169,559.42 $43,080.37 Total: $212,639.79
- Carmel Angelo, Chief Executive Officer, Mendocino County, 2014: $153,461.58 $20,571.57 $65,949.66 Total: $239,982.81
- Thomas Allman, Sheriff Coroner, Mendocino County, 2014: $126,089.60 $2,000.00 $105,010.28 Total: $233,099.88
- Jane A Chambers, City Manager, Ukiah, 2014: $157,499.88 $29,309.56 $59,962.59 Total: $246,772.03
- The current Ukiah City Manager, Sage Sangiacomo, makes more than the Governor (and these stats are 2014) at well over a quarter million a year.
Summary for Mendocino County (2014)
- Total population: 87,612
- Total number of county employees: 1,387
- Total number of full-time, year-round county employees: 987
- Median pay for full-time, year-round county employees: $48,073
- Median pay and benefits for full-time, year-round county employees: $69,554
- Total county employee compensation: $84,622,774
- Total county employee compensation cost per resident: $965
- Median earnings for full-time, year-round private workers: $34,754
Summary for Ukiah (2014)
- Total population: 15,956
- Total number of city employees: 309
- Total number of full-time, year-round city employees: 160
- Median pay for full-time, year-round city employees: $64,859
- Median pay and benefits for full-time, year-round city employees: $92,195
- Total city employee compensation: $17,675,206
- Total city employee compensation cost per resident: $1,107
- Median earnings for full-time, year-round private workers: $38,140
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