Fire board approves new compensation policy

This compensation plan should have happened 30 years ago, so it could help us NOW. What plans are being made to arrest the number of retirees under the age of 60 years old who will be collecting high 5 or low 6 figure pension incomes for the rest of their young lives while we are sacraficing public services and accepting increased fees and taxes? What about now?

This new policy, combined with the Fire District's existing Resolution requiring that any proposed labor agreement be made public 15 days before the Board is permitted to vote on that proposal, ensures that the taxpayers' interests are fully considered in the process of negotiating new wages and pensions. No longer will labor negotiations be done without public scrutiny.

As for Susan's concerns about existing pensions - that is the price that citizens pay for not demanding that their elected officials act in the public interest.

Just wanted to say this before all of the critics jump in, or those who discount progress because it didn't come sooner have their say. My thanks and compliments to the District Board. For this, and many other initiatives they have taken that insure fiscal responsibility. In my opinion the MPFPD should be held up as "best practice" in terms of how public entities should be managed.

This sounds like a step in the right direction.

Susan, the only recourse for existing pensions is taxation or bankruptcy.

Finally, some sanity in public employee compensation.

Kudos to the MPFPD Board of Directors.

The new policy calls for consideration of the taxpayer and the general economic climate. What simple, logical concepts. That these concepts were never in the compensation policy of the MPFPD before is amazing. That the current board has corrected this, is nobel. Elected officials of other Councils and Boards in our area should follow their lead.

There one other question of compensation. It is the formula(s) used for compensation vs. risk that eventually needs to be addressed. I get it that the compensation of "safety" employees (fire and police) should be higher that public employees in clerical and gardening positions. The risk they face is the tradeoff for higher compensation. But why continue that compensation differential when the risk ends. The risk ends when they retire, yet these employees are afforded higher multipliers on higher pay bases for their retirement pay. The risk is gone, why not adjust the retirement compensation down to the new level of risk.

Does this make sense to others? Or am I alone in seeing this incongruity?

Very good, common-sense policy. It might not be bad for similar initiatives to circulate for other jurisdictions and agencies. Even SF, which is a little too union-influenced (2010 Prop B was pretty reasonable, but failed), did pass something similar with its Fix Muni Now ballot measure, which established that arbiters must consider the impact of disputed work rules on Muni fares and service. When the union rank-and-file rejected a fairly-negotiated contract earlier this year, what happened? The arbiter imposed the contract anyway!

Good to see progress, however disjointed.