Most Misguided Quotes of 2011 Selected by Call

By MIKE ANTHONY, Executive Editor - CALL NEWSPAPERS

Past year a memorable one for officials' misguided quotes

January 11, 2012 - 2011 certainly was a year of change in south county, but one constant was the misguided comments by would-be politicians and elected officials.

As in past years, we had no shortage of candidates for inclusion in the annual Most Misguided Quotes of the Year column in which we chronicle the most misguided, misinformed and misleading statements of the year. So without further ado, we offer the Most Misguided Quotes of 2011.

Though Michael Klund didn't have much to say to the public during his campaign against incumbent Aaron Hilmer for a seat on the Mehlville Fire Protection District Board of Directors, he may have set a new record for having the most number of misguided quotes in the shortest period of time. (For more on Mike Klund click HERE)

Klund did not attend a candidate forum scheduled for March 24, citing a family emergency, and declined a request to appear April 4 on Charlie Brennan's radio show on KMOX.

Hilmer did appear and fielded questions from Brennan and listeners.

In response to a Call questionnaire, Klund contended the fire district's reserves had been "depleted'' in building new firehouses.

"... The reserves have been depleted in the building of these firehouses and the old ones were functioning well anyway ...,'' he stated.

But the reserves are not depleted, according to the district's 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, which states the general fund had an unreserved fund balance of roughly $15.5 million or 129 percent of general fund expenditures while the ambulance fund had an unreserved fund balance of more than $7 million or 150 percent of ambulance fund expenditures.

Klund also contended ambulance billing, which had been approved in 2002 by a previous board, was "double taxation.''

"Put a stop to ambulance billing — that's double taxation,'' his campaign literature stated.

To eliminate ambulance billing, Hilmer later said the Board of Directors would have to ask voters to approve a tax-rate increase of roughly 10 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.

Klund told the Call he was pleased with his campaign, saying it was based on "facts.''

"I'm really happy with my campaign. I believe I ran facts on everything I stated in my literature and stuff and it can all be verified ...,'' he said.

Voters weren't buying what Klund was selling, but the nearly $100,000 supporters contributed to his campaign certainly had an impact as Hilmer narrowly retained his seat.

That's a good thing, too, given that after the election, Klund said, "I hope that the new board looks at the issues I brought up like ambulance billing, that they readdress that and make sure people don't get billed.''

Perhaps Klund can cough up the $2.4 million in revenue the district's 2012 budget projects ambulance billing will generate this year.

Then we have Mehlville Board of Education member Tom Diehl, who in early February blamed "sloppy paperwork" for the Committee to Restore the Pride's post-election finance report missing the filing deadline by more than two months. (For more on Tom Diehl click HERE)

The committee had advocated passage of an 88-cent tax-rate increase proposal for Mehlville that voters defeated in the Nov. 2, 2010, election.

The delay prompted someone (ed:from the MCTA) to file two complaints against the committee with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

The complaints, dated Feb. 1, contended the Committee to Restore the Pride had violated state law by failing to file post-election and January quarterly campaign finance reports with the ethics commission.

"It's just a matter of sloppy paperwork," Diehl said.

But by the time Diehl organized the "sloppy paperwork,'' a retired Mehlville educator was on the hook for a fine from the ethics commission.

In a Sept. 14 consent order, the commission fined the committee and former Treasurer Jack Jordan a total of $2,000.

The commission's order stated if the respondents pay $200 of the fine, it will stay the remainder of the fee for two years.

The respondents will not have to pay the rest of the fine if they do not violate campaign finance laws during the two-year period, according to the consent order.

Diehl, the committee's current treasurer, told the Call in February that Jordan "agreed to serve as treasurer in name because of his name recognition. None of us have any intention of dumping anything on Jack's lap because that wasn't his role."

But Jordan, a retired Mehlville principal whom the school board recognized by naming the Mehlville Senior High School stadium in his honor, was on the hook for the fine — essentially hung out to dry by Diehl.

So it's no wonder that Jordan opted to pay the fine himself to put an end to the matter.

"Jack wrote the check himself. He just wanted to get the thing settled and done," Diehl told the Call. "We had offered to pay it, but he chose to do it himself."

After Democratic County Executive Charlie Dooley backed off his proposal to roll up the county's property tax rate by 2.3 cents in early September, he told the County Council some things he said "were misspoken, and I do want to apologize for that.''

"In my zeal to get some things done that I think were important, I think I didn't do a very good job in communicating to the council and that's something that has to be corrected," Dooley said. "That's something I need to do a better job of ...''

Dooley apparently neglected to heed his own advice when presenting to the council his recommended 2012 county budget that called for the closing of 23 county parks, eliminating 175 jobs and not plowing streets of snow in unincorporated areas when accumulations are 2 inches or less, among other things.

A nearly unanimous council led by then-Chairman Steve Stenger, a Democrat from Affton, opposed Dooley's proposed budget and Dooley ultimately announced a compromise in which all of the county's parks will remain open "at a reduced rate.''

The proposal to not plow streets of snow in unincorporated areas when accumulations were 2 inches or less also was rescinded.

And last, we have what may be the final appearance of former Crestwood Mayor Roy Robinson in this annual column.

During a heated discussion at the April 12 Board of Aldermen meeting, Robinson told former Ward 4 Alderman Steve Nieder, "You're finished. Sit down, and if you don't, I'll have you sit down.''

In telling Nieder he was "finished,'' Robinson could have been talking about his own dashed reelection hopes, as he had been soundly trounced a week earlier by Jeff Schlink in the April 5 mayoral election.

Indiana's Right to Work

Hoosiers debate voluntary union membership.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The labor reform story of the year is unfolding in Indiana, which Republicans who dominate the legislature are trying to make the nation's 23rd right-to-work state. Democrats are resorting to the old run-and-hide ploy, but this could be a huge economic boon to the Hoosier State.

Big Labor portrays right to work as a radical change, but it merely lets individual workers decide if they want to join a union. In non-right-to-work states, workers typically must pay union dues once their worksite is organized—whether they want to pay or not. This enhances union clout and the cash to dominate state politics.

Many industrial and manufacturing businesses only consider right-to-work states as locales for expanding their operations. The nearest right-to-work state in the Midwest is Iowa, so Indiana could set itself further apart from such high-tax, unionized havens as Illinois and Michigan.

According to Chief Executive Magazine's annual CEO survey, Indiana has climbed to sixth from 16th among state business climates, thanks to reforms since 2004 under Governor Mitch Daniels. But the state's biggest liability remains its labor market. A Forbes survey last year ranked Indiana 34th in business climate, partially because of a dismal 44th rank in labor "supply," which includes unionization.

Democrats in the state House played hooky for three days last week in an effort to deny a quorum for voting on the law. They returned to work yesterday after Democratic leader B. Patrick Bauer acknowledged that they "can't stay out forever." House members face penalties of $1,000 per day for walkouts longer than three days, so the obstruction could get expensive.

House Republicans have scheduled a vote for Tuesday morning, though Democrats may once again try to split town. Democrats say their vanishing stunt is merely to give Hoosier voters time to consider the measure, but this is hardly the state's first brush with union reforms. In 1995 the legislature passed a right-to-work law for teachers over the veto of then Democrat Governor Evan Bayh. Right to work was also debated for a time last year, but Republicans decided to press a state-wide school choice reform.

Similar legislation passed a committee of the state Senate on Monday. Unions have spent heavily on TV and radio ads to scare up opposition, and a handful of Republicans are still on the fence, though not enough to kill the bill if Democrats show up to provide a quorum.

The last state to pass a right-to-work law was Oklahoma in 2001. New Hampshire Republicans tried last year, but their bill was vetoed by Democrat Governor John Lynch. If Indiana joins the club, it would send a message that even voters in industrial states realize that their overall business climate must take precedence over union power. If President Obama really wants to revive U.S. manufacturing and exports, he'd make all of America right-to-work. But Indiana would be a splendid new precedent.

Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Retiring L.A. County Workers Get $48 Million for Unused Time Off

Of 3,900 who collected compensation for unused vacation and sick days, comp time and holiday credits in 2010, 64 received checks for more than $100,000.

By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times

6:43 PM PST, January 7, 2012When Lt. Marie Hannah retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 2010, she left with the well-wishes of her colleagues, a six-figure pension and a one-time payment so large it surprised even her: $183,683 for unused time off.

Hannah accumulated her 325 days of vacation, sick time, comp time and holiday credit over a 30-year career. Under county rules, she was paid for all of it at her final $147,600 salary.

"I've always been a person who believes in saving for a rainy day," Hannah said of her decision to skip family trips, to work when she felt under the weather and to stockpile the time off. "But I didn't expect [the check] to be this much."

Although Hannah tops the list of more than 3,900 county employees who collected termination compensation for unused time in 2010, she's not the only one who reaped a substantial amount. Sixty-four departing employees received checks in excess of $100,000, county data show. The vast majority of them, 49, worked for the Sheriff's Department.

In all, Los Angeles County paid more than $48 million to retiring employees for unused time off in 2010. About a third of that, $16 million, went to workers leaving the Sheriff's Department even though they made up only 13% of the county's retiring employees, payroll data show.

The county is not alone in allowing public sector employees to bank large amounts of time. State and local governments across the country offer workers large future payoffs in lieu of immediate benefits, especially during tough economic times.

Such provisions can also be used to reward political allies.

Gov. Jerry Brown maintained the state's 80-day cap on vacation in all but one of six union contracts he renegotiated after taking office in January. The exception was the deal for the powerful prison guards union, whose members spent nearly $2 million on his election campaign. They can now accrue unlimited vacation.

Even with the cap in place, however, managers at state agencies have granted so many exceptions that the limit holds little meaning. Last year, nearly a third of retiring state employees got paid for more than 80 days, data from the state controller show.

"There needs to be some consequence to ignoring the cap," said Kline. "Just like the general public has to adhere to speed limits and tax deadlines … public officials should have to follow the rules placed on them."

In 2010, a retiring state prison doctor cashed in more than 21/2 years, for $594,976, records show. A Forestry and Fire Protection administrator walked away with a check for $294,440. And a parole agent, who'd saved nearly three years, collected $268,990.

Most private employers place much more restrictive caps on the amount of unused vacation workers can accrue; 25 days is a common limit. Employees who exceed such caps are typically paid within a year or so of when they earned the time off.

Experts say a similar policy, if used by state and local governments, would alleviate the sudden strain that huge lump-sum payments place on already stretched public budgets.

"Agencies should pay this out at the rate it was earned," said David Kline, spokesman for the California Taxpayers Assn. "You want to have enough money to keep paying for the public safety services the people need, and when you have giant payouts like this, it affects those services."

Hannah came close to maxing out nearly every category of unused time county rules allow employees to accumulate: 60 days of comp time, 80 days of vacation and 90 days of sick time.

She also banked 105 days for working on official holidays, county records show. The county recognizes 11 official holidays each year. Hannah's lump sum payout was made in addition to her $139,600 annual pension.

Sheriff's Department spokesman Michael Parker said that his agency performs a crucial 24-hour public safety function, so it's not always possible for key employees to take time off. He also noted that six-figure payouts are the exception, not the rule.

The average payout to a departing Sheriff's Department employee was $31,816 in 2010, the data show.

Retiring firefighters, who also serve a 24-hour-per-day mission, averaged $32,698. But only four of them, three assistant chiefs and a captain, got paid more than $100,000 for unused time off last year.

Asked to explain why so many more Sheriff's Department employees got big checks, Ryan Alsop, assistant to county Chief Executive William T Fujioka, wrote in an email, "The labor agreements for these entities would have to be considered before making any comparisons."

He said he wasn't familiar enough with the contract details to explain the difference.

Steve Whitmore, another Sheriff's Department spokesman, said the deputies have taken less vacation and used fewer sick days recently in an effort to drive down overtime costs.

Hannah declined to describe her daily duties at the Sheriff's Department or to say why she was required to work so much. "We worked the holidays and around the clock," she said. "Crime doesn't stop on Christmas or Thanksgiving."

Parker said Hannah retired from the civil management unit of the Court Services Division, which is responsible for serving court papers and carrying out evictions and repossessions, according to the Sheriff's Department website.

Because such large payouts can trigger higher taxes, some state employees have been allowed to burn off large amounts of time by taking vacations that last months, or even years, at the end of their careers.

They stop showing up, their desks remain empty, but they keep getting paid until their accrued time runs out. Because they're technically still employed, the extended vacation counts toward their overall length of service, which ultimately boosts their pensions.

State officials acknowledge the practice, known as "running out the clock," but they don't have a system for tracking how many employees have done it, said Jacob Roper, a spokesman for the controller's office.

County employees can run out the clock, too, Alsop said. But leaving a job vacant for such a long time is especially difficult at the Sheriff's Department.

Hannah said that she was offered no such option and that she paid "significant" taxes on the lump sum. Still, she had no complaints about the big check, which she earned with decades of commitment to her job.

"Certainly, it's a lot of money, and I'm not downplaying that," Hannah said. "But when you look at it over a 30-year career, it doesn't look like quite so much."

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

How to Make Leviathan's Growth Understandable

Washington Examiner - By: Tom Elia | 01/03/12 8:05 PM

It is hard to fathom the enormity of the federal government.

With an annual budget of almost $4 trillion, annual deficits of well over $1 trillion, outstanding debt of over $15 trillion, and unfunded future liabilities of well over $50 trillion, Washington has become by far the largest, most expensive organization in the history of human civilization.

The federal government has become so enormous that its growth alone in the last five years measured in the number of employees and the amount of spending dwarfs entire urban populations and other, massive organizations.

An eye-popping example of the immensity of the federal government was recently illustrated by USA Today's Dennis Cauchon, who last week reported U.S. Office of Personnel Management data showing an increase of about 277,500 federal government employees since September 2006.

Every day we see large numbers in reference to the federal budget, the federal deficit, the EU's financial troubles -- you name it. But just how large is this five-year increase of 277,5000 employees in the federal workforce?

To put it into context, the increase in the number of federal government employees hired since September 2006 alone is larger than the populations of all but about the 70 largest cities in the United States.

The number of federal employees added during this period is also larger than the populations of 37 of the nation's state capitals.

How much do these additional employees cost the taxpayers? The average annual federal salary, with benefits, was about $123,000 per civilian employee in 2009, which means that Washington is this year spending about $34 billion more just in the costs associated with net new hires since September 2006.

That additional cost alone is larger than the total FY 2011 budgets of four federal, cabinet-level departments:

* Department of Justice, $31.3 billion

* Department of Energy, $31.2 billion

* Department of the Interior, $13.1 billion

* Department of Commerce, $9.25 billion

The additional cost is also larger than that spent on a number of individual federal agencies and programs in FY 2011:

* NASA, $17.7 billion

* Environmental Protection Agency, $9.2 billion

* National Science Foundation, $6.8 billion

* Army Corps of Engineers, $6 billion

* Small Business Administration, $1.3 billion

In addition, the amount spent this year on these new federal employees will be larger than the entire annual budgets of 36 different states this year.

Many people worry that large corporations wield too much political influence in the U.S.

How does the total annual cost for the more than 277,000 additional federal employees hired in the last five years compare to corporate revenues?

There are only about 270 corporations in the entire world with revenues greater than $34 billion per year, and only 80 of which are in this country, according to Fortune magazine.

Companies such as Amazon.com ($34.2 billion) and FedEx ($34.7 billion) had revenues roughly equivalent to that which will be spent this year just on these new federal employees.

And the amount spent annually on these new federal employees is larger than the revenues generated by huge corporations such as DuPont ($32.7 billion), Sprint ($32.5 billion), General Dynamics ($32.4 billion), American Express ($30.2 billion), Google ($29.3 billion), Time Warner ($26.9 billion), McDonald's ($24.1 billion), Motorola ($22.8 billion), and American Airlines ($22.2 billion).

Of the grievances against King George cited in the Declaration of Independence, one reads:

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance."

Compared to the standards being set today, King George was a piker.

Tom Elia edits The New Editor web site and is author of "When Lobsters Take Flight: A skeptic parodies politicians, 'progressives,' potentates, and the press reporting on them all."

Public Pensions Loom as a Huge Problem in Illinois

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH - Saturday, January 7, 2012 

BY KEVIN McDERMOTT 

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • The pension reform law that Gov. Pat Quinn signed this week was about as politically easy as pension reform gets: It outlaws double dipping by union officials who were gaming the system to secure their own six-figure public pensions.

But even as political leaders of both parties congratulate themselves on the new law, Illinois' broader pension crisis — an $83 billion shortfall in funding that is supposed to be guaranteed for retired teachers and other public employees — remains unsolved.

The ratio of Illinois' unfunded pension liability remains the worst of any state, with just 43.4 percent of the long-term pension burden currently funded. The implications were starkly defined this week, when Moody's downgraded Illinois' credit rating to A2, the lowest mark it gives to any state, citing in part the state's failure "to implement lasting solutions to its severe pension underfunding."

Republicans say the problem is an overly generous public pension system, and they point to abuses like the ones addressed in the new law.

In one case, a teachers union president retired on a $185,000 pension based on a few years of teaching in the 1970s, which allowed him to apply the state teacher pension formula to his much higher union salary. In another, two union lobbyists were able to secure inflated teacher pensions by substitute teaching for a day.

"We've learned that this is a system that is frequently abused," says Collin Hitt, senior director of government affairs at the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank.

More to the point, Hitt says, "It promised benefits to everyone that were not sustainable." Those benefits average about $60,000 a year for what Hitt calls "career educators," the biggest chunk of the public retirement system.

But union officials and Democrats say those abuses are aberrations in a system that, overall, isn't unduly generous, averaging just $32,000 a year per retiree in annuities when it takes into account all public employees.

The problem, union supporters say, isn't that the workers are getting too much but that state leaders have been shortchanging the system for a generation, avoiding tough budgetary choices in lean years by failing to make the pension fund payments they were supposed to make. The failure to adhere to that payment schedule, they say, is what dug the hole that some now want to fill by cutting workers' benefits.

"The problem is not the cost of benefits. The problem is the failure of politicians to make adequate contributions over decades," says Anders Lindall, spokesman for Illinois' chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "Rather than raising adequate revenue or cutting services (to address budget shortfalls), they simply skipped the required pension payments."

In any case, the result of the shortfall is a state pension payment that this year will hit almost $5 billion — about 10 percent of the total state budget. The majority of that money is needed for the postponed backlog of previously missed payments, and interest on that debt, rather than for current contributions.

Union supporters say the solution is to pay up on that shortfall, even if it means raising taxes.

"It's time ... to ask rich people to pay their fair share" by instituting a graduated income tax in place of Illinois' current flat-rate 5 percent tax, said Lindall. The idea would be to use the additional income from that new tax system to fill the pension shortfall.

But doing that may be difficult in a state that just recently imposed an income tax hike last year.

Another approach is laid out in pending legislation that would cut the state's obligation for front-end payments on pension benefits of current public employees, requiring them to pay to keep to their current benefits or accept lesser benefits. A third option would be for them to go to a 401(k)-type investment plan.

"I don't think we can afford not to see something this spring," said House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, co-sponsor of the bill.

He and other supporters stress that the changes would affect only current workers' accrued benefits going forward, and not retroactively.

That kind of reduction in benefits was recently imposed for future hires on Illinois' public payroll. But the suggestion of requiring it of workers already on the public payroll is controversial and possibly unconstitutional.

Even some of those who say they favor the change in concept argue that changing the benefit structure of current public employees, without an agreed-upon contract change would be struck down by the courts — if it can get out of the Legislature first.

"I don't think there is a firm indication of enough bipartisan support to pass this bill," said Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, who is co-sponsor of the bill but hasn't yet called it in the House. "Speaker Madigan remains supportive of the effort, but it's not going to happen overnight."

Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, is suggesting a third course: bargaining with unions to secure their agreement to changes like the one envisioned in the bill, which would negate a constitutional challenge.

"He wants to work with the unions, not against them," said Cullerton spokesperson Rikeesha Phelon.

Of course, that would likely be a tough sell to union officials who believe that the core problem, as AFSCME's Lindall puts it, is that "the state has not paid its fair share for decades."

As legislative leaders hash out how to handle the problem, it isn't going away. The Illinois Policy Institute last week released a study showing that Illinois this year will spend $2 billion on retirement costs for higher education, which will "almost certainly" surpass what the state sends to higher education for other purposes — the first time that has happened.

(The bill to change benefits for current public employees is SB512).

David Nicklaus of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

10 IMPLICIT Fallacies Justifying Government Pensions

JANUARY 4, 2012 2:22PM

By Richard Rider

http://open.salon.com/blog/richard_rider/2012/01/04/10_implicit_fallacies_justifying_government_pensions

Sometimes explicit but often IMPLICIT in government employee demands for high pensions are many, many fallacies:

1.  "Public employees deserve high pensions because they work for low wages."  

FALSE.  Perhaps true at one time, but not so any more.  In many instances, today's government employee is earning 10%-30% more than their true private sector counterparts -- and with far better job guarantees. BTW, the bogus union salary comparisons usually cherry pick the private sector -- including in their "surveys" only the largest and wealthiest private sector employers -- along with monopoly public utilities.

2.  "Government employees should not have to save for retirement."  

FALSE.  They can use IRA (and, for teachers, 403-b) accounts to add to their retirement savings -- just like the rest of us.  They can invest in stocks, real estate, annuities -- just like the rest of us.  And they can invest the inheritances they receive -- modest or otherwise -- rather than spending these windfalls and then relying on their pensions as young government geezers.

3.  "Government employees deserve to retire earlier than private sector employees."  

FALSE.  Or at least, if they do "need" to retire early, they can get another job to supplement income (as do most military retirees). 

4.  "Government employees and their families deserve to live and retire comfortably from a single 40 hour a week job."  

FALSE.  Today most private sector middle income and upper middle income couples fully expect to generate multiple incomes -- usually by some combination of working over 40 hours and working together.

5.  "Government workers deserve guarantees because they are 'public servants' not motivated by greed."  

FALSE.  As a group, public employees are as greedy as they come, and they rely on the force of government to get what they want.  The REAL "public servants" are the TAXPAYERS underwriting these opulent compensation packages.

6.  "No matter how many or few years a public employee works for government, their only source of retirement income is (and should be) their government pensions."  

FALSE.  Indeed, in their comparisons of government pensions, the public labor union propagandists factor in the folks who work as little as 10 years for government.  

7.  "Many government employees (including most teachers) don't get social security."  

LARGELY FALSE -- or at least misleading.  It's true that many (primarily local) public employees don't pay into social security while working for government, but most qualify for at least a minimum social security income from other jobs -- ten years of even part-time SS income earned over a lifetime.

8.  "Without the guaranteed pensions, many government employees would retire in poverty."  

LARGELY FALSE -- or at least not the fault of taxpayers.  This assertion is based on the bogus assumption that, unlike private sector employees, government employees would (and should) otherwise save nothing for their senior years.

9.  "Many government employees should be able to retire with essentially the same income they earned on the job."  

FALSE.  This is the "90% pension at 30 years" common in public safety jobs -- and for too many other government employees.  Indeed, given that a retired employee would no longer pay into their pensions, union dues, Medicare, or have commuting costs, a 90% pension is actually HIGHER than the net salary earned while working.  The normal retirement goal in private sector financial planning is 60% of working income -- counting all retirement income sources.  

10.  "We have to pay top pensions to attract 'the best and the brightest' to government work."  

FALSE -- and a bad idea to start with.  We DON'T want to attract "the best and the brightest" to government work.  We need such folks in PRODUCTIVE employment in the private sector.  All that government pensions do is to assure that government employees STAY as government employees -- an easy accomplishment for the workers as they are all but guaranteed lifetime employment regardless of the quality of their performance.  

Government jobs are -- with rare exception -- in extremely high demand, which is why government so seldom advertises job openings. Exceptionally high applicant demand and low job turnover tells any employer that they are paying too much for their employees.  Any employer except government, that is.