Exhaustive research by Ventura County Taxpayers Association has revealed that the Ventura County pension system is one of the most generous in the state and allows more abusive pension spiking than any other county retirement system.

 

The County's pension program offers benefits for "employees that attempts to provide economic security and not lavish retirement incomes." say Supervisors Bennett and Long. For years, we've heard from senior executives and the Board of Supervisors that the county has a conservative pension scheme compared to other systems. These claims are simply wrong.

 

The county has chosen to continue with a form of pension spiking long abandoned by other counties, contributing to the richest pension system of any California county. At the end of March 2011, Ventura County had more public servants receiving pensions in excess of $200,000 than San Diego, Santa Barbara, Orange and Sacramento counties combined.

 

We have been told by the board that a very active effort is under way on a pension reform package. At the same time, we are concerned that the same people who benefit from the system are the only ones involved in fixing it. We hope they are getting input from the public and are using outside legal advisers who do not belong to any public pension system.

 

In 1997, the California Supreme Court ruled that many of the payments such as uniform allowances, vacation sellbacks, education bonuses, etc., had to be included in calculating pensions. This decision was unexpected and shocked the 20 counties, including Ventura, that operate under the particular retirement system called the 37 Act.

 

This decision greatly increased the pension cost for these counties. Taxpayers should be aware that this ruling did not apply to other public pension plans for state workers and teachers, plans that do not see the egregious spiking that Ventura County and other 37 Act counties do.

 

However, taxpayers should note that the court specified that two categories of compensation could be excluded in pension calculations at the option of the counties. These were the pickup of pension contributions, where the county pays the employee's share of pension costs for the employee, and the flex credit used to buy certain benefits.

 

In the Taxpayers Association research into why Ventura County's pensions are so high, we discovered that it is the only one of the 20 counties that elected to continue including this expense in the calculation of pensions. The idea that the pension calculation should take into account money that was never part of the employee's income is indefensible and an offense to the taxpayer.

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