Discussions about the El Paso Firemen and Policemen’s Pension Fund are beginning to surface.
The citizens of El Paso paid in an extra $210 million a few years ago to bolster the fund.
Now the fund faces an additional $270 million shortfall.
Why?
Newly hired firemen and policemen are allowed to retire at 50 years old! They get to draw retirement pay for 15 years longer than citizens under social security.
Those hired before 2007 get an automatic 3% increase in their retirement pay every year!
Can’t do it
These numbers simply are not sustainable. We cannot afford them.
Firemen and policemen often risk their lives for us. If their work is dangerous and should be awarded then we should pay them more as we go, not mortgage the future.
Let the market decide how much to pay these people. Post the starting salaries. If qualified people want the jobs they will apply. If too few apply, raise the offer.
As for retirement, why have we been put into a position where the taxpayers are forced into increasing retirement benefits?
Why is there a separate retirement fund for this group? Why don’t all government employees belong to the same retirement system that the ordinary citizens are forced into?
Ignore the voters
Now members of our state delegation are introducing legislation that would take the funding out of the voters hands. As it stands now the city charter gives us the right to vote on this funding question. The legislation would leave it up to our city council. The legislation is not proposed to be statewide — it would only apply to El Paso.
What an outrage!
Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty
Cato
elpasospeak 
Agreed Cato. It is interesting to note how our city is parallelling the crises of several of the bankrupt cities in California who built AAA baseball stadiums, couldn’t afford their entitlement programs, and finally went bust. The stadiums were just frosting on the cake, the teams left the cities, and the taxpayers were left with worthless high dollar stadiums. We must wake up.
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