But Brown recently told reporters that California could be financially distressed again if the California Supreme Court rules in a case titled Cal Fire Local 2881 v. California Public Employees' Retirement System against Brown's 2012 California's Public Employees' Pension Reform Act that stopped the state and local selling of "airtime" that allowed public employees to spike their pension benefits by purchasing up to five years of unworked service credit seniority.California drastically increased public employee pension benefits in the fall of 2003, when the state allowed employees to purchase "airtime." Prior to the pension spike, a 50-year-old fireman making $89,000 a year could retire at age 50 after 30 years of service and collect an $80,100-a-year pension with life expectancy of 76.3 years. But under "airtime," the fireman could purchase extra years of seniority at a cost per of $0.18022 per year for every $1 of salary. For $80,197.90, the fireman could increase his pension by $13,350 to $93,450. Such an investment in "airtime" would return a spectacular income stream of $351,105 over the next 26.3 years of life expectancy.
The state can modify contracts, I suppose, but the California Rule was always an understood agreement between voters and firemen. A any given point, the tax payers were free to quit agreeing, they never did. One might say that the taxpayers never got a vote in California, and if so, that is a fundamental violation.
So Jerry, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot fool the voters, as you did, about union contracts, then demand a law to prevent you from fooling the voters. Ripping off voters is a fundamental right of California politicians, you cannot create a law that says voters have to have brains. You are stuck, California voters have fouled their budgets pretty much for good.
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