Never let the government unionize against you, the tax payer.

Public outrage over lavish government employee compensation and pensions is becoming more heated as new revelations about excesses seem to crop up every week.

With the ability to spike final year’s pay based on over-time, vacation and sick leave time, uniform allowances, etc., many former government employees now earn more retired than when they worked.

Like many communities across California, the city of Newport Beach is facing the harsh realities of budgeting with less revenue after housing values and the stock market plummeted. Now the city’s full-time lifeguard force has finally come under scrutiny. Next week the city council will decide if cuts are needed to the full-time lifeguard force where last year the top earner received $211,000 in pay and benefits, including a $400 sun protection allowance. In 2010 all but one of the city’s full-time lifeguard staff had annual compensation packages worth over $120,000.

Not bad pay for a lifeguard – but what makes these jobs most attractive is the generous retirements.

These lifeguards can retire at age 50 with full medical benefits for life. One recently retired lifeguard, age 51, receives a government retirement of over $108,000 per year—for the rest of his life. He will make well over $3 million in retirement if he lives to age 80. According to the City Manager, a new full-time guard costs less to hire than what is spent on this one retiree. The city now spends more taxpayer dollars on retired lifeguards than it does on those who are working.

As bad as Newport Beach’s situation is, it pales in comparison to some other cities in California. The city of Fresno currently spends 53 cents of every payroll dollar on pensions. The state average is 31 percent and is expected to rise significantly in the next few years. Ultimately, as the system is currently structured, everyone but a few privileged retirees will lose. Government will try to raise revenues by increasing taxes on Californians who are already the highest taxed citizens in the country, essential services will have to be cut, even essential government employees will have to be laid off, and the public will become increasingly enraged as they learn that 50 year-olds, who are fully capable of working, are living off golden parachute retirements at the expense of the taxpayer and the community services they thought they were supporting.
Full article at biggovernment