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Editorial: Núñez's retirement deals are sweet and stinky
Last Updated 12:18 am PDT Thursday, March 27, 2008
Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B6
Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez sure has the Midas touch when it comes to golden handshakes.
As a way to prompt early retirement and cut costs over the next year, Núñez is offering pension-sweetening deals to 222 Assembly employees – those over 50 years old with at least five years of state service – even though 13 of them already qualify for pensions above $100,000 a year and another 12 qualify for pensions upward of $70,000 annually.
Think about that. You already qualify for a pension beyond most people's wildest dreams and have been earning a decent salary. (Nearly four dozen of Núñez's employees earn more than $100,000 a year.) And yet the speaker wants to add to the state's long-term pension obligations by sweetening the deal, ostensibly to save costs.
Five employees have already accepted the golden handshakes, and Assembly administrators estimate the Assembly could save $2 million to $3 million if 35 more retire early.
That's true. But that $3 million in savings won't be permanent. The Assembly plans to refill the positions within three to 18 months.
Even more incredible is the analogy that H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the Department of Finance, used to justify the Assembly's action. Palmer told a reporter: "The fact that a number of newspapers around the country are offering buyouts is a signal from your own industry that they believe it's a way to control long-term costs."
This is simply nonsense. When newspapers and other businesses offer early retirement deals, most of the resulting vacancies are permanent. The jobs go away – the result of tough decisions to control long-term costs.
At least one person in the Capitol has the guts to stand up to these golden handshakes. Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-South Gate, challenged these deals as an affront to taxpayers. So Núñez ousted him as chairman of the Rules Committee. De La Torre should win some kind of public service award. Too bad those aren't handed out in the Assembly.
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