Many Calif. Cities on the Hook for Bell Pensions

(CBS)  When the angry citizens of Bell, Calif., forced their outrageously overpaid city manager and police chief to resign, it may be the best thing that ever happened to the two. Consider the pension now due city manager Robert Rizzo.

"His lifetime pension will be roughly $30 million," said Marcia Fritz of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.

And the pension due police chief Randy Adams.

"His lifetime pension will be more like $15 to $17 million," said Fritz.

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But it's taxpayers in other cities who will be shelling out for these lavish pensions because in California every city or county an employee worked for has to pick up a portion of the pension. And the pension is based on the final year's salary alone, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.

So police chief Adams, who worked just one year in Bell at a salary of $457,000, now qualifies for an annual pension of about $448,000. The city of Bell will pay just $13,449 a year. Glendale, where Adams worked for five years, will contribute $62,764. Simi Valley? More than $85,000. And Ventura, where he worked for 20 years, will pay more than $286,000 annually.

"It's just wrong," said Ventura resident Becky Rodkin. "He took advantage of the system and now everyone's going to have to take cutbacks and all of Ventura's going to have to pay for it."

For city manager Robert Rizzo's potential $890,000 annual pension, the city of Rancho Cucumonga where he worked more than 20 years ago will have to pay about $185,000 and Hesperia more than $74,000.

"There's no control," said Fritz. "And they don't even know it's hitting them until it hits them."

The only good news for all these communities is that California's attorney general Jerry Brown is investigating whether the exorbitant salaries in Bell should be excluded from their pensions.

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[stormerF3]

This is what happens when Bedwetters get in without fiscal controls set by the citizens. All Public officals should have to get raises voted on by the Citizens they serve,not by other elected officals.

[tsigili]

The citizens need to watch what is going on, in city hall. Failure to do so, creates a nightmare.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know, that the salaries granted to these people, were totally out-of-line.

[MKV34]

Is Bell, California story coverup for a bigger issue? like inflated pensions..Are Bell county city manager, Police cheif etc just coverup for a bigger racket in california?

[dadirt]

Yea, government jobs. And these clowns want to run everything they can get their hands on. And they produce nothing! They are parisites on the economy, and the Democrats want more of them! We all cannot work for the government, someone has to pay the taxes! Amazing what happens when people can vote on how much they make. Most retirement plans for sity and state employees are what are killing budgets. Typical workers work for 40 years before retirement while city and state workers retire after 20 years, and many go out on disabilty and collect almost full salary, or go to work for the city or start as a subcontractor.

[krisd999-2009]

The people used to tar and feather crooks like these and run them out of town, not pay them millions in "pensions".

[decotoguy]

This $hi! is happening through-out California.The crooks learned by
watching their fathers do it.Every COP,FIREMAN,and CITY worker are
in the BUSINESS of JACKING the CIVILIANS of the State of California.
The problem I see is HOW will the State support these THIEVES
when they leave and pass their jobs to their children.
This all proves to ME,that MEN are SLAVES,and has NO DESIRE to
free himself for SLAVERY.

[tmittelstaed]

The citizens deserve it, they allowed their city government to raise salaries to rediculous amounts. I've see this kind of thing many many times in business, too. What happens is when a board, or a city, or an organization doesen't have a CEO or mayor or chief or whatever, they all get paranoid and feel that they have to run out and pay top dollar to whoever can lie the best. And they do it, happily. Then the top dog comes in and they discover that he's no better than the last top dog and then get disillusioned.

If people would just step up to the plate and do some work it wouldn't be a problem. Half of the corporations out there could run along just fine WITHOUT a CEO at all! The CEO just delegates all of the decisions to underlings who understand the issues better anyway. City government isn't any different.

[skepticalJM]

This is not only about pensions, but the huge salaries for bureaucrats that don't deserve these kinds of salaries. Our government is becoming a formula for the rich to hire other people and make them rich all on the tax payers backs. This is what happens when capitalistic Corporations have turned our government into the Corporatist fascism it has become. When the Obama administration legitimatizes 23 million new citizens from Mexico to pad his reelection, watch the federal deficit hit the red, and start bankrupting all the states. I used to side with the liberals more than the conservatives; but now I'm seeing how crooks, no matter what they call themselves, can warp any ideology into just another method to enslave us.

[teachersmurf]

I watched the Bell, California story about pensions. Whoever did the research on this story did not do a good job. You intentionally mislead the public about pensions. Most defined benefit pensions are annuities. That means while the employee works, money is contributed to an account for that person. The account is secure and interest bearing. Once the employee retires, the payments to that account, for that employee stop. The pension is now paid out of the already established annuity. Therefore, the public is not paying someone a salary every year. You actually mislead people to thinking the reason they are paying taxes is soley so someone can sit back and take their money, when they already earned this money. That is why a defined benefit pension has a specific payout formala, usually years of service time 2.0% or 2.5%. Please get all your facts correct before you report the news!

[ludvig1-2009]

In California as they just said on the news, the taxpayer has to pay when their isn't enough money in the Calpers system. These thieves did not earn this money. The only disappointment in how the citizens handled this is they went to the city hall meeting and complained instead of going first to the Godfather for rectification.

[hdc77494]

That may be how pensions SHOULD be funded, but it's not reality. Second, who in their right mind would design a pension system where the lifetime payouts are based on a single year's salary? The public sector, in their quest to buy votes from public employee unions, continually commit their citizenry to pay out exorbitant sums that continue years past the election they bought. The way the laws are written in California, the payouts continue, and the union contracts remain in force, EVEN IF THE GOVT DECLARES BANKRUPTCY. They're almost all theives.