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$100,000-plus pension club in Mesa Consolidiated, Mission Viejo, Moulton Niguel

November 20th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

joy-of-not-workingSo we continue our trek through the CalPERS database of public retirees today with three more OC agencies - which have five retirees who get pensions greater than $100,000 a year.

These three are interesting exceptions to the emerging rules. In general, the most well-paid retirees have been public safety types - police and fire chiefs - and they have been men.

But two of today’s agencies are water districts - so no expensive benefits for public safety employees; and the other is a city that contracts with the Sheriff’s Department for police services, thus keeping high public safety pension expenses off its own books.

And two of the three most well-paid retirees at these agencies are women. The agencies are:

  • Mesa Consolidated Water District in Costa Mesa, which has two (the top dog being Diana Leach, former general manager, $145,393.56),
  • Mission Viejo, which has one (former planning diretor Clinton Sherrod, $107,241.12)
  • and the Moulton Niguel Water District, which as two (the top dog being former administrator Carol Sanders, $130,674.36).

This brings total membership in the local CalPERS $100,000-plus pension club to a round 200, from 15 different public agencies. We still have a dozen to go. See full lists, links to previous stories and standard disclaimer below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Cities • Special districts • Water | 106 Comments »

The $100,000-plus pension club in La Habra, Laguna Beach, Los Alamitos

November 17th, 2009, 11:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

retirementWe really don’t like to irritate so many of our readers. But we’ve been working our way through the CalPERS database of public retirees for weeks now, and it would be wrong to stop halfway through.

So, we pick up today with three of O.C.’s smaller cities, which have eight retirees who get pensions of more than $100,000 a year. They are:

  • La Habra, which has four (the top guy being former City Manager — and current county CEO – Thomas Mauk, at $120,265 a year, which brings his total annual haul to almost $500,000, our colleague Jennifer Muir recently discovered)
  • Laguna Beach, which has two (the top guy being former Police Chief  James Spreine, $125,647)
  • and Los Alamitos, which also has two (the top guy being former Police Chief Michael McCrary).

This brings total membership in O.C.’s $100,000-plus club to 195 (with a baker’s dozen more O.C. entities to go).

See full lists and links to previous stories below. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Cities • County government | 342 Comments »

Poseidon adventure: $350 million public subsidy for private desalination plant

November 13th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

poseidon(Vote in our poll: Should Poseidon get the subsidy?)

The mighty Metropolitan Water District of Southern California agreed this week to pony up $14 million per year - or $350 million over the next 25 years, if you prefer to think of it that way - to pay for desalinated water in San Diego County.

That money will go to public entities - cities and water districts - to offset the cost of water they’ll buy from a private, yet-to-be-built, desalination plant in Carlsbad. That plant will be constructed and owned by Poseidon Resources LLC. 

If this Poseidon thing rings a bell, it’s not just because you remember Shelley Winters from the disaster movie. Poseidon is also working on a similar project in Huntington Beach. 

The San Diego project, however, is much farther along, and will be Southern California’s first major foray into ocean desalination. Construction of the $300 million-or-so plant should begin next year, and water is supposed to flow in 2012. It will provide enough water for about 300,000 residents, or  100,000 homes a year. (Over the quarter-century, that translates to some 1.4 million acre-feet of new water - nearly twice the capacity of Diamond Valley Lake, the region’s largest drinking water reservoir near Hemet, Met says. See Met report here: met-desal-report)

Poseidon hopes to issue more than $500 million in tax-free bonds to construct the Carlsbad facility.

The $350 million public dollars that will make their way to Poseidon’s pockets over the next quarter-century come from Met’s Local Resources Program, which aims to boost SoCal’s own water supplies, and reduce dependence on the imported stuff. It’s a controversial move:

  • Critics want Met to fund public projects, not private ones.
  • Environmentalists worry about the impact of highly salty brine, a byproduct of desalination, and want to pursue cheaper alternatives (conservation, recycling, recapturing stormwater and the like).
  • Others worry about Poseidon’s splotchy track record. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Cities • Consumer stuff • Public works • Special districts • Water | 22 Comments »

Vote! Should Poseidon get $350 million public subsidy for private desal plant?

November 13th, 2009, 4:59 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

poseidon1(Read the main story here)

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California agreed this week to pony up $350 million over the next 25 years to pay for desalinated water in San Diego County.

That money will go to public entities - cities and water districts - to offset the cost of water they’ll buy from a private, yet-to-be-built, desalination plant in Carlsbad. It will be constructed and owned by Poseidon Resources LLC.

Some feel that Met should be funding public efforts to find new water, not private ones. Others worry about the project’s effect on the environment. And still others question Poseidon’s ability to get the job done.

So. Should Met - whose money comes from the 19 million Southern Californians who pay for water through their cities and water districts - cough up the $350 million?
  • Add an Answer
View Results

Posted in: Cities • Consumer stuff • Polls • Public works • Special districts • Water | 7 Comments »

The $100,000-plus pension club in Garden Grove, Huntington Beach and Irvine

November 12th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

retirement-beachSince September, the number of people in California’s $100,000-plus Pension Club has leapt 1,000 - to 6,133.

What’s behind that rather startling 20 percent jump in how many California Public Employees Retirement System retirees bring home more than $100,000 a year? Info on judges has finally been added to the list, says Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.  CalPERS had omitted them before.

So! We continue working through the CalPERS database of public retirees, and today we look at:

  • Garden Grove, which has  14 people in the $100,000-plus pension club (top guy is fire chief Keith Osborn, $173,399); 
  • Huntington Beach, which has 35 (top guy is police chief Ronald Lowenberg, $151,909); 
  • and Irvine, which has 16 (top guy is administrator Lawrence Larsen, $133,144).

(These folks get this money every year until the day they die.We’ve already visited Anaheim, with 59; Brea, 13; Buena Park, 11; Costa Mesa, 27; Fountain Valley, 11; and CSU Fullerton, 1; bringing our tally thus far to 187. )

We’re going alphabetically, three entities at a time, until we’re done with Orange County’s cities and special districts that are part of CalPERS. (The Register is in a standoff with the Orange County Employees Retirement System to get similar data.)

For those who will assail us for publishing these lists, please understand that this is public information, and do us the kindness of reading why we think it’s important (below) before blasting us with emails. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Cities | 282 Comments »

Greed forces local governments to blow $504 million on lawsuits, group says

November 9th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

ladyjusticeA handful of local governments in California spent more than a half-billion dollars dealing with lawsuits over two years - including $14.2 million spent by the good County of Orange, and $4.4 million by the city of Anaheim, according to a report released by California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.

“Not only are these costs outrageous in their own right, the money spent by Orange County in just one year could have more than paid for both the county’s Domestic Violence program and Emergency Medical Services,” said the group in a prepared statement. “In Anaheim, one year of litigation costs could have maintained 146 acres of park and 105 sports fields for the same year.”

Of the nine counties examined, Orange County had the fourth-highest total spending on lawsuits - much more than similarly-sized San Diego and Santa Clara counties. See charts of totals below.)

Of the eight cities, Anaheim ranked No. 7.

“Orange County is facing severe cuts to vital services and programs like public safety, parks and education,” said Maryann Marino, Southern California Regional Director for the group, in a press release. “Yet we are doing nothing to curb litigation costs, which could actually provide substantial savings to local governments without sacrificing jobs or programs.”

The group acknowledges that some lawsuits are meritorious, but “(g)overnment entities are too often seen as deep pockets, even in today’s tough times, and abusive lawsuits are filed in an attempt for some plaintiffs to get rich quick,” the report says. “With many of these lawsuits being filed on a contingency fee basis, plaintiffs’ attorneys have plenty of motives to file lawsuits in the hopes of a quick settlement or a large verdict.” Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Cities • County government • Justice • Schools • Special districts | 13 Comments »

Full benefits for part-time elected officials are reasonable, mayor says

November 5th, 2009, 10:53 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

joel_lautenschle1Read the main story here

It’s “reasonable and customary” for local governments to provide full insurance coverage to part-time elected officials, the mayor of Laguna Hills says - and many public entities do just that.

We thank Joel Lautenschleger for responding to our question about the insurance issue, which makes that part-time city council job much more valuable than it might otherwise appear, in a pure dollars and cents sort of way. (Lautenschleger’s stipend as a councilmember was just $7,484 last year; but the city paid nearly $24,000 for his medical, dental, vision and other insurance, plus $1,324 into a retirement account.)

He didn’t like it that we singled out Laguna Hills. “It’s insulting and demeaning to suggest that we’re doing this just for the insurance,” he told us on the phone.

“The 18 years I have put in to public service have been ones of dedication to improving my community,” Lautenschleger said in an email. “I am very proud of not only helping to form this city but to have it run efficiently, honestly, safely, and with tremendous fiscal responsibility. It is why we get re-elected and if you would bother to look at some of the accomplishments instead of being a mouthpiece for a council challenger, you would see why people have expressed great satisfaction with this council over the years.”

(We object to the “mouthpiece” bit; we do not have feelings for or against council challenger Barbara Kogerman, but we certainly do like the public documents she has forwarded to us.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Cities | 25 Comments »

It’s the health insurance, stupid!

November 5th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

city_council

Read the mayor’s response here

Why do people run for local office? Why are they willing to perch on those daises hour after hour, year after year, decade after decade, pondering sewer systems, street repairs, budget shortfalls and zoning updates?

Is it altruism at its purest? Is it a form of masochism?!

Certainly there’s great satisfaction in public service. And the prestige attendant to being a democratically elected representative is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But stipends for city councilmembers are notoriously low (especially when compared to, say, water districts), with the highest-paid city councilmembers getting just $1,500 a month or so, and most getting much less.

So it can’t be about the money. Or, can it?

Public documents obtained by a challenger in the Laguna Hills council race tell a very interesting story:

  • Yes, the annual council stipend is low: just $7,484 per member.
  • But the city pays nearly three times that much on insurance - health, medical, dental, vision, etc. - to the tune of $23,902, for a single councilmember, for a single year. (One Laguna Hills councilmember gets less - see details below.)
  • The city also pays into the California Public Employees Retirement System for councilmembers - $1,324 per councilmember last year.joel_lautenschle

Some of them also get travel and meeting expenses of several hundred dollars per year…. Not bad for a part-time job!

Let’s look at Joel Lautenschleger (right), who has been on the council since 1991. In 2008-09, his medical insurance cost $22,164; dental, $1,360; vision, $301; life and disability, $77. The PERS contribution was $1,324, and he got $898 for travel and meeting expenses.

You can see figures for previous years for him, and the rest of the council, below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Cities | 48 Comments »

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