Allow me to offer my opinion about the firefighter pay issue on the ballot. I know that many of you will disagree with part or all of what I think about this so feel free to post comments.
Firstly I think that our public employees should belong to the same retirement system that civilian citizens do. While it would be unfair to change the rules for existing employees, we should see to it that new employees are not part of a private retirement plan. Eventually as the retirees die off we will not need one.
There was a time when public employees received better retirement packages than the general population. The rational was that the public employees were paid less while they were actively working and thus deserved better retirement benefits. Many people chose this life style–less money today, more tomorrow.
Now many government jobs pay more than their private counterparts and the government employee gets a better retirement.
I would prefer that we pay our employees a fair wage while they are working. How can the fair amount be determined? We start with pay rates at the levels they are at now and we don’t change them until we need to. As time goes by we will see that if we don’t have enough qualified applicants or if we cannot retain employees then we will need to raise compensation.
As far as the current pay raise issue is concerned, my view is that we will need to raise the firefighter’s pay eventually. I would rather do it now and put budget pressure on city council so that they will not fritter the money away.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Yes, you are right about many of us will disagree with you on this issue. First, I’d like to ask you just where you found factual data to support your statement that “Now many government jobs pay more than their private counterparts and the government employee gets a better retirement?” I seriously doubt the veracity of that statement. Maybe the admin types get paid way more than they are worth, but the rank and file do indeed have much lower starting salaries, across the board, and even the admin types could make more money in the private sector.
This is one retired State employe, who also worked for the City-County Health Department, and I have to tell you that when I left public employment, my first job outside the public sector paid me more than one third more money than I was making after more than ten years in government service.
As a retired State employee I have to also tell you that I always did resent, and still do resent attitudes from people who really did NOT know what they were talking about that cast all public employees in a negative light. FYI, there was no rationale (with an e) about public employees deserve a better retirement than other people because they were willing to trade off the lower pay for better retirement. I don’t know where you got that fact, either, and would challenge you to prove it. The fact is that public employment is no picnic, especially when misinformed people like you have such a negative view of them. This former public employee can only speak for myself when I tell you that I always gave my best, and my main reason for working in the public sector was that I wanted to work Monday through Friday, so I could spend time with family. Is that such a bad thing to want?
I think you need to better understand these issues, and inform yourself as to the facts before you spout off so many generalities.
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John,
I think you’re out of touch. Things have changed a lot since you retired from your multiple government jobs.
This is from a 2012 Federal OMB report: Comparing the Compensation of Federal and Private-Sector Employees:
“Overall, the federal government paid 16 percent more in total compensation than it would have if average compensation had been comparable with that in the private sector, after accounting for certain observable characteristics of workers.”
More details: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42921?index=12696
There are exhaustive studies comparing the pay of public vs. private sector employees. The differences vary by federal, state and local. It also varies, for example, state by state. You have to be willing to read them in their entirety.
At the risk of oversimplifying things, research pretty much shows that state and local government salaries tend to be about 6% to 7% lower than in the private sector, but that the benefits exceed those of the private sector, especially pensions and healthcare, which are rapidly being taken away in the private sector. In some states, however, government compensation is greater than in the private sector.
Also, in recent years public sector employees have continued to receive reasonable increases while pay in the private sector has stagnated.
You resent people who have negative feelings about public employees? You seem like an honorable man, but the entitlement attitude of the today’s government employees, many of who behave as a privileged class, make many taxpayers resentful, especially when government employees disrespect and condesecend to those they supposedly serve.
By your own admission, you loved working Monday to Friday and having your weekends free. I bet you also loved getting every holiday, while many in the private sector had to work to serve you on your days off. You might have even punched out at 5 while working for the city. Now, the City of El Paso offices are only open Monday through Thursday. Try that today in the private sector. Those are wage and quality of life benefits unaccounted for in these compensation comparisons.
I for one am not worried about the quality of life of El Paso city employees. Some will retire with two pensions. Most private sector employees today will not even have one.
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The issue here is not the general treatment of public employees in salaries and benefits, but the SPECIFIC case of the fire-fighters and their treatment over the past few years. Observing the huge salary increase given to Ms Wilson, who left the city finances in complete disarray, and the eleven months of paid leave (and a bit of vacation) for Ms Shaung, apparently to protect her from being fired so that she could reach the minimum needed for a life-time pension, it seems more than reasonable to give the fire-fighters a small raise! And yes, it is really incredible that the city continues this outrageous policy of closing its offices on Fridays, but that hardly applies to the fire-fighters!!
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Public employee salaries and benefits might not be the issue here, it was part of the post. John took the position that there is no data to support that government employees are paid as well or better than the private sector. I felt that needed a response.
It would be interesting to know how firefighter and police salaries and pension plans in El Paso compare to other cities of comparable size and the relative size of the police and fire departments. I might be mistaken, but I don’t think we’re even in the top 100 cities when ranked based on highest number of police offers per thousand residents. Given that we also have a relatively low crime rate, that says a lot for the residents and the job the EPPD is doing with the resources it does have.
Discussions here sometimes spin off into other related topics. That part of what makes things interesting. It’s no different than having drinks with friends who respect one another, but don’t always agree on everything.
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Actually, based on the “latest” data available (2008), we’re in the top 45… BUT, if you consider TOTAL LEO’s per capita we’re MUCH higher!
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The firefighters’ demands are a separate issue from Ms. Wilson’s abuses.
If you listened to City Council this morning, or if you at least look at the material presented by the City, you will see that firefighters who have been on the job at least 5 years already get a 5% raise every year. That is incredibly generous. I don’t know anyone in public or private employment who gets a guaranteed 5% raise every year. Then, on top of that, the firefighters are demanding a 3% increase. That’s an 8% increase. Even with the increase in health insurance, they are coming out way ahead.
Firefighters are valued for the special skills and training the job requires. They are already paid very well. If firefighters don’t get their way and quit to go somewhere else, there will be others in El Paso to take their place and benefit from the generous salary and benefit package already in place.
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John,
I don’t know how I conveyed the idea that I disrespect or am negative about public employees.
For the record I am neither.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I normally don’t take a stated position but thought that in this case doing so would encourage more complete discussion.
Thank you for your continued participation.
Brutus
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My issue with this is what the firefighters are not telling us… first of all, in regards to the payraise… this is about a Cost of Living payraise… they are already getting Step Increases worth about 5% per year. But a 3% Cost of Living increase for each of the next 3 years? Apparently this is not based on the Consumer Index! I think the firefighters would be better served to push for an increase to the entry level salary, especially since they are required to be certified.
Secondly, the firefighters are telling us about how they are exposed to extreme conditions, smoke, toxins, etc and health insurance is an important component of their benefits… but is this about THEIR healthcare OR their families? I thought the city provided their insurance. Additionally, this is a top tier 90/10 plan that most police and other city employees forego for a premium 80/20 plan at 1/2 the cost.
I think it is wrong for the city council to pass this off to the citizens to decide, especially when they didn’t allow us to vote on whether or not we wanted to build a baseball stadium, only how we were going to pay for it…
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The most important point in Kamikazi’s comment is how Council picks and chooses which financial decisions it will unilaterally decide on. If Council wants to push something through for special interests or for wealthy campaign contributors, it makes a unilateral decision. If council members want to avoid taking a position that lose them the support of the police or firefighters, it throws the hot potato to the voters.
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Brutus is correct that the lower salary/dependable retirement rationale is what many people believed when entering teaching or other state jobs. At least that’s what was the prevailing opinion 30+ years ago. The Teacher Retirement System has a good reputation because everyone assumes the state will always back it up. I know a couple of people who lost more than half their pensions when the private companies where they worked for many years took bankruptcy. Only a few municipalities and no states, as far as I know, have gone broke.
That said, my problem with the firefighters campaign is that they are using scare tactics. When I received a call last week from them, I mentioned that many people go through their working life getting small (less than 2%), sporadic raises. Their choice is to go to another job or stay. The person calling for the firefighters said El Paso could end up with a volunteer fire department when all the firefighters quit and go somewhere else.
Everyone know salaries are less in El Paso — across the board in all sectors unless you are a consultant from Dallas hired by the City Manager or president of a school board.
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Public retirement systems are under major fire from politicians across the country, and many are being turned over to private finance companies, with disastrous consequences for the future pensions.
Whatever decision you make about the fire-fighters should be based on the SPECIFICS of their situation, not the general situation of public or private employees in the state or country!
I have not received any scare tactic phone calls…it was wrong of that caller to use such a tactic, but again, that’s one individual. I have not seen that in their mailings.
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So… what ARE the SPECIFICS? That a 5% per year step increase isn’t good enough? That while many are now finally able to get healthcare coverage we should pay for the families of one sector to be provided top shelf coverage at 20% of the cost?
My question, as I stated before, is why aren’t they pushing for higher entry level salary?
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As I recall the compensation chart used to be on the city website.
I cannot find it now. Figures.
Brutus
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The public-private difference is that public pay was once lower than private sector pay and it certainly was when I began employment in the late 1960s. But that all has changed as industrial jobs were outsourced overseas and to Mexico. In El Paso today, I don’t know how a private employer could match the pay, healthcare, retirement, and other rich benefits (4-day week, COLA) that the public sector sucks out of the tax base now.
My position on this is that the city and county should have a 5-year salary freeze to let the private sector catch up. Also, that public pensions should be cancelled and converted to annuities that match current vesting. Then, like many current private sector employers (and especially the tech sector),city and county employees would have 401-K type plans that they fund and that the CC and CommC vote an annual contribution into.
This is America; you’re on your own.
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Where do you all get the idea that City employees only work four days a week? Just because some offices are closed to the public one day a week does not mean that the employees are off on those days. As for COLA, exactly what is being referred to? Cost of Living Adjustment, or that thing that is an option for employees who have left a job? Either way, do you have a source that verifies that all City employees get an annual pay raise? I know that in my experience, we often went five years or longer without pay raises of any kind.
I agree with Helen Marshall, who points out that we should be considering the specifics of the Firemen, and their situation, instead of lumping them in with City employees in general.
Reality Checker also raises a very valid point in that it is interesting to note how City Council seems to pick and choose which issues are brought to the voters, and which issues they reserve for their own decisions. But, when he cites a Federal OMB report to support his contention that I am out of date, I have to take issue. We are talking about City employees here, and specifically the City of El Paso. There is a difference, and I hope he realizes that. As for any entitlement attitude of today’s government employees, maybe he is the one who is out of touch. In Texas there is no room for public employees to have any attitude such as he suggests, and you can thank W for that. Under his watch, when he was governor, Texas became a “Right To Work” state, and what that really means is that where it used to be very difficult to terminate a public employee, now all employees work “at will,” and can be terminated for no reason whatsoever, and they have absolutely no legal recourse.
As for my “own admission,” I said that I wanted to have my weekends free. That is not the same as saying that I “loved working Monday to Friday and having my weekends free.” As for holidays, please keep in mind that State holidays differ from City holidays, and that leave time was not an issue raised in either my comments, or those of Brutus. The fact of the matter is that, in my opinion, American attitudes towards time off are sadly out of touch across the board, and we need to follow the rest of the world in this area.
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Texas has always been a Right to Work state, not just in the last 15 years.
I don’t know where you get the idea that state employees can be terminated for no reason. That would be a violation of federal law. There is a set, step-by-step procedure that must be followed and the employee is protected every step of the way. There’ is more legal recourse on the part of the employee than the state.
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FYI, the State of Texas became a Right To Work employer when W was governor. I know, because I was a State employee at the time. I was later fired for no reason, and had absolutely no legal recourse, and their “step-by-step” procedure was just a formality that meant nothing at all. So, please do not tell me otherwise.
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