Rocklin Gives Early Retirement Deals to City Managers, Then Rehires Them. The city of Rocklin recently gave generous early retirement packages to nine managers in an action described as a salary savings maneuver. However, The Sacramento Bee reports that "rather than sending the retirees off with some cake, the city rehired them for their old roles – as part-time employees."
Under this arrangement, City Manager Carlos Urrutia will receive $170,000 a year from his California Public Employees' Retirement System pension, even while earning $139,000 from the city as a part-time employee. His total take-home pay will be $309,000, up from his former base pay of $230,000.
When the managers "retired," Rocklin gave them two years of service credits to boost their pensions, making the double-dipping even more costly.
City officials say that because the city no longer will be paying medical benefits for the managers, and will not have to contribute any more to their retirement, the city will save more than $700,000 – addressing an immediate cash-flow problem. But Wally Reemelin, president of the League of Placer County Taxpayers, said it is "utterly ridiculous" that "the city is in financial hardship and they give these gold-plated deals to them." (Source: The Sacramento Bee, March 15.)
(Cal-Tax recommendation: How about just eliminating some unneeded management positions, filling others will lower-paid employees, and cutting back on overly generous benefits? Shuffling employees around does not address the long-term problems, and simply adds to the public perception that government cares more about padding government workers' wallets than about protecting taxpayers.)
Cal-TaxReports, March 22, 2010
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