Dear Menlo Park Voter,
CalPERS, (The California Public Employees' Retirement System) is on the brink of raising its required contribution rates by 50% over 6 years beginning next year.*
Assuming salaries, health benefits and the number of employees stay the same, personnel costs will increase by about $3 million when the changes are fully implemented. If salaries increase, the pension contribution will increase further, since pensions are based on an employee’s' final, best salary (and the time an employee has been in the program).
We urge the City Manager and the Council Members to keep these projected increases in mind when renegotiating union contracts - the renegotiation process begins soon. (They won't. They never did before.)
And we urge you the voter to think about what services or public works should be cut to make way for the increase - or what increase in taxes you'’d be willing to pay support it.
Henry Riggs
Roy Thiele-Sardina
* Web Link
Blue collar public worker, come out, come out wherever you are.....
