A representative of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), made it clear to the San Benito County Board of Supervisors that they want to eat their cake and have it too. They want their jobs and a raise and they want to continue to contribute little toward America’s best large-scale retirement and healthcare benefit plans. Who wouldn’t? They even offered to help squeeze more taxes out of county residents to fund their gold-plated benefits. They did not use the term “squeeze” – but what else can you call it when those with the best deals propose a tax increase on so many struggling families?
Statewide, the average county-level public employee earns 11.7 percent more than the average state wage earner. That is very close to the difference between the SEIU average base wages for authorized staffing not counting overtime, $46,000, and the average wages for all workers in San Benito County, $41,288. True, SEIU members do have most of the lower paying jobs in the county where the average full-time regular salary is $63,340, but they are getting great benefits and retirement plans, much of it tax-free. Except for a prudent reserve, the county spends essentially all it takes in and it takes in about all the public can afford.
Union members have stories of economic stress – they cannot afford to pay more for retirement or healthcare, or the commute is expensive and so forth, but why would they believe the average county resident is under less economic stress than they are? The truth is the just the opposite – many residents wish they had those local public service jobs and especially the early retirement and topnotch benefits that come with them.
When it comes to retirement and healthcare, public employees win as a group. A private sector employee has to work until 67 to get full Social Security; the average age for all CalPERS retirees is 60 with only 20.5 years of service, so these are the first-of-two or second careers for many. Less than 21 years is certainly not a full work life. The best measure is the size of the retirement checks. What do average CalPERS members get for 20.5 years service? They get more than twice the average Social Security retiree check. In mid 2013, the average monthly benefit for all retirees in the CalPERS system was $2,629; for all retirees in the Social Security system it was $1,270.
County taxpayers also pick up the check for $11,248 per employee for present health and insurance costs, $4,000 for this year’s installment on lifetime medical care and $4,600 to pay down the $22 million debt the county is carrying for retiree healthcare funding. Why the debt? The county used that money to keep people employed. That’s $19,800 per employee for healthcare – totaling $7.9 million. Then there is unemployment and workers compensation insurance, and Social Security-Medicare taxes – $2.7 million.
The grand total, $41.3 million for 398 employees, averages more than $100,000 each, which is about $2,460 per county household. If you live in the city you also have to pay city personnel costs. Then there are state personnel costs, and so on. There are better wages available in Santa Clara, Alameda, Monterey, Sonoma, Marin, Napa and Santa Cruz counties, to name a few, but considering the county’s population and income these are good jobs. They are so good they have been sending many county residents to the poorhouses.
