[GeraldCortis]

Wonder why California is bankrupt? Unions and Liberalism.

$600,000/year pension??? Sweeeet.

Give me a break.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...0,449553.story

Other cities stuck with the tab for Bell officials' massive pensions

Under the state's arcane, convoluted public pension system, Bell will pay a fraction of the city manager and police chief's pensions. Former employers and other cities will bear the brunt of the cost.

By Catherine Saillant, Los Angeles Times

August 1, 2010|5:42 p.m.

The unfolding story of the high salaries paid to municipal officials in Bell has delivered a surprise twist to taxpayers in Glendale, Simi Valley, Ventura and several other Southern California cities — they're on the hook for the pension bills.

More than half of former city manager Robert Rizzo's $600,000-a-year pension will be spread among 140 small cities and special districts such as Norco, La Cañada Flintridge and Goleta that are in the same pension liability pool as Bell.

The rest would be shouldered by his former employers, Hesperia and Rancho Cucamonga, according to estimates made by The Times and reviewed by pension experts.

In the case of its former police chief, Randy Adams, Bell escapes nearly all the costs of his estimated $411,300-a-year pension. Under CalPERS rules, the city is responsible for just 3% of that because he only worked there for one year. Taxpayers in Glendale, Simi Valley and Ventura would have to pick up the rest.

As the Bell pay scandal reverberates across California, it is opening a window on the arcane world of public pensions. The state's permissive pension laws and a host of variables that can dramatically affect retirement pay have created a system that is virtually impossible for the public to grasp, reform advocates say.

[oemcheapdownload]

This will never get paid out, and the officials involved will hopefully see criminal charges. California capped salaries in 1996, but the people involved in this scam held a special election that pretty much nobody in Bell knew about just to designate themselves a charter city, which allowed them to sidestep the salary caps. And then they started cranking up their own salaries and never telling their constituents about it.