Are better pensions really a coin toss?
Heads I win; tails you lose. If you think that’s no more than a trick your weird uncle tries to play on gullible nieces and nephews at family gatherings, you may not have been paying close enough attention to the news.
A little more than a year ago, when the City of Marion was fretting about not being able to attract candidates for police positions, the police chief at the time argued that pay needed to be increased.
Ignore the fact that this was the same chief who later couldn’t get anything right in leading a botched investigation that led to an illegal raid on our newsroom.
His argument — strongly supported by a key city council member — was that Marion had erred in thinking it could attract applicants by switching officers out of the generous KPERS retirement system and into the uber-generous, extremely costly Police and Fire system KPERS also offers.
For years, Marion offered this benefit and used its generosity to justify paying a tad less than the sheriff’s office and neighboring departments like Hillsboro’s. Officers who planned to make a career of it could retire several years earlier — a privilege granted because the city put in double or more the normal amount into their retirement system.
The key council member — one who continually insists that older people just don’t get it — argued vehemently against the idea that better pensions attracted better candidates. Young people simply don’t think about retirement, he contended, so the extra benefit means nothing to them. All they care about was the size of their current paycheck.
He might not be wrong in his assessment. But it begs a question: Why didn’t Marion, after approving hefty raises, switch back to regular KPERS instead of the more costly version? Then again, we have to remember we’re playing our weird uncle’s “heads I win; tails you lose” game. And the “I” in this particular game are government employees, while the “you” are we poor slobs who pay for whatever they want.
It turns out it may be impossible to quit Police and Fire once a government joins it. But that’s not the real “heads I win; tails you lose” scenario we now face.
Flash forward a year and a half, and Marion County seems to be adopting the exact reverse of what the City of Marion argued. The county contends it can’t find enough employees because it doesn’t offer Police and Fire pensions.
Both the city and the county can’t be right. Costly super-pensions can’t be both a necessary inducement and something potential employees don’t really care about. But, remember: This is “heads I win; tails you lose.”
Moving to Police and Fire is an enormously costly proposition and one that may not be undone. No one’s quite sure how much it would cost county taxpayers, but a good estimate is around a quarter of a million dollars a year. That’s enough to create full-time staffing for a third ambulance station or the equivalent of almost two mills on property tax bills.
The reason for switching appears to be that a candidate whom commissioners would like to name ambulance service director wants it for ambulance attendants. But, as with most government largess, the proposal doesn’t stop there. The county also is considering shifting to Police and Fire for sheriff’s deputies and even jailers, who under law appear to be eligible only if they become certified as law enforcement officers — yet another additional cost taxpayers would have to pay.
It’s unlikely to stop there. When some city workers in Marion began getting free clothing — justified because they worked in very dirty and hazardous conditions — other employees wanted free clothes, too. The clothing didn’t end up being uniforms. Clerical employees got to choose from a whole catalog of different apparel.
How long do you think it will take for county workers not covered by Police and Fire to begin demanding higher wages because of the extra, costly benefits provided to others?
This isn’t the county’s first game of “heads I win; tails you lose.” A few years back, the county clerk’s salary was increased because the clerk essentially functioned as county administrator. The county later hired an administrator, but rather than take away the extra given to the clerk, it decided the treasurer’s salary needed to be raised to match the clerk’s.
One of the problems with Police and Fire — and with KPERS itself — is that it’s not like Social Security, which most government employees also receive. It’s more like self-insurance. The amount an employer must kick in every year changes based on the amount of benefits paid out. The result is basically a blank check that can lead to very steep increases in pension costs for employers and, ultimately, taxpayers.
None of this is to suggest that law enforcement officers might not deserve pension plans that allow them to retire younger than most others. Think of them like people in the military, who receive similar pensions. They regularly put themselves in harm’s way and often need physical agility that may diminish with age.
There clearly are officers in their 60s who easily could outrun younger, less fit officers, but providing an option for early retirement makes sense for many. Does it also make sense for ambulance attendants? The laudable service of someone like Marion’s professional volunteer, Gene Winkler, suggests otherwise. He continued to serve the ambulance service well past what most would consider even a late retirement age.
Like so many other issues, what’s needed in considering Police and Fire is basic common sense and a willingness to think not just about demands but also about the reasons why such systems exist and the impact they could have years after elected officials who approve them have left office.
— ERIC MEYER