08-02-10, Al Hofmann
Wonders if the “Gadflies” Really Misrepresented Glendale’s Pension Facts
Dear City Council Members,
Since I send you this from Hal
Weber's Open Government article, a pertinent article in the Los Angeles Times appeared in today's (08/02/2010)
edition. The article is on the front page of the LATEXTRA section AA and
is titled "Getting
stuck with Bell's tab". This is a very informative article which
you should all read, as it points out that the residents in all affected cities
just can't seem to get what the government pension plans financial impact on
their city's budget really is.
In the article, it states that the
estimated annual pension for the life of Randy Adams is $411,300 per year.
The article further states that Glendale's
portion of his retirement will be 16% of that figure. This amounts to an
annual obligation for the City of Glendale
for Randy Adams' retirement of $65,808. If Randy lives another 20 years,
and that certainly is not unrealistic, Glendale's
obligation for that period would amount to $1,316,160.00. That is a
frightening statistic when one realizes that this obligation is for just one
individual who retired from Glendale.
What I am really concerned about is
that the statistics offered multiple times by Herbert Molano
and Bruce Phillpot revealed that we were heading for
a financial obligation that could cripple our city. Of course, the
council over the years shrugged these statistics off, and for the most part
accused the "Gadflies" of misrepresenting the facts. Did they
really misrepresent all these facts? I remember last year in one of the
budget sessions that I brought up the issue of the pension obligations on the
City of Glendale.
City Manager Starbird assured me that Glendale had planned well
for the pensions of its Civil Servants, and that along with the city's minimal
contribution and the employee's own contribution, that all the future pensions
would be covered by CALPERS. Now it seems that CALPERS is throwing the
obligation back at the cities. Again, how is a taxpaying resident able to
understand all the figures offered by the City Management, and that the
statistics offered by the aforementioned gadflies were nothing but smoke.
It appears to me that our whole
nation is in the barrel as a result of things going wrong at the local level,
and nobody was paying attention, i.e. the City of Bell. Again,
please do read the article I referenced. It is very pertinent, and needs
to be addressed by our city's government.
Sincerely, Albert
Hofmann
From: ahofmann8@hotmail.com
To: fquintero@ci.glendale.ca.us;
lfriedman@ci.glendale.ca.us; anajarian@ci.glendale.ca.us;
akassakhian@ci.glendale.ca.us; jdrayman@ci.glendale.ca.us;
dweaver@ci.glendale.ca.us
Subject: FW: Bruce Philpott Regarding Glendale City
Manager Starbird and Randy Adams’ Pension
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:36:34 -0700
Is there any validity to this? Hal Weber's Open Government website came
up during the Quality of Life Document debacle last Tuesday. I know that
I have questioned the responsibility of Glendale
for the pension programs. Mr. Starbird
responded that the city had a small contribution, and that Cal Pers was responsible for the
distribution of pensions.
Al Hofmann
From:
halweber@earthlink.net
Subject: Bruce Philpott Regarding Glendale City
Manager Starbird and Randy Adams’ Pension
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:34:52 -0700
New
Content:
Home Page of Open Government (???) in Glendale California: www.oggc.org