[Editor’s Note: Name withheld at letter-writer’s request.]
Re “Mr. Malsin: Oh, No, Not Again.Oh, No, Not Again. Oh…”
Enjoyed your article in response to City Councilman Scott Malsin’s second essay last Friday. Just wanted to point out a few additional items.
Every year, tenured employees retire from the city. Culver City is fortunate to have an excellent workforce that includes competent tenured and less-tenured employees.
As someone with knowledge of City Hall, I have occasion to deal with a number of people and am very impressed by the next generation of individuals who will be stepping into management positions in police, fire and civilian posts. While I don’t at all argue the value of tenured employees or their incredible contributions, the reality is they are going to leave in the near future either way.
Every one of these tenured employees at some point in his career stepped into the void left by a retiring employee. They took the challenge, and the city is the better for it. To say that we do not have a group of experienced employees that will step into these positions is insulting. The city will not stop functioning.
In many cases, new ideas and approaches will be instituted.
Once again the city will be better for it.
Another fact Mr. Malsin ignores is the ordinance, passed by voters in the 1950s that takes the ability to negotiate salaries for police and fire out of the control of the city. This ordinance provides that whatever Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County give in terms of base salary raises to their employees is passed on to Culver City safety employees. LAPD has already inked a deal that includes a number of salary increases over the next few years. LA Fire is soon to follow.
Los Angeles County is in negotiations, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they also provided some salary adjustments. This means Culver City safety employees will see salary adjustments, which will increase their pensions. This is a great incentive for some of the employees Mr. Malsin is convinced will be leaving to stay on to secure these increases.
Mr. Malsin also fails to put the Culver City retiree medical benefits into proper context. The reality is that the current level of benefits offered by Culver City is matched only by a handful of cities in California.
The “new” benefit agreed to by the Culver City Employees Assn. and Culver City Management Group is still well above the average that you will find in the public sector, and I daresay you would find it anywhere in the private sector.
With that said, I don’t disagree that some form of grandfathering might not be worth consideration.
What is interesting about Mr. Malsin’s proposal is that it is the one proposal that would include him. A variety of approaches could be taken for grandfathering. If the city is going to continue providing this rich benefit to a group of employees, would it not make more sense to do it for those who have been serving this city for their whole career (or at least most of it)?
Perhaps those who have served the city for 20 or 25 years?
Under Mr. Malsin’s proposal to base the grandfathering only on age, an employee who started here a year ago, who is 50 years old, would have a right to the current benefit where an employee is in his mid-40s and has been serving the city for 20 years, would not.
That doesn’t seem right. The truth, whether we want to face it or not, is that people are living longer and will need to work longer to pay for their retirement years. There is already discussion of adjusting the eligibility ages for Medicare and Social Security. We can’t expect to retire in our early or mid- 50s and have fully paid benefits for the rest of our lives.
Mr. Malsin, for eight years of service to the city, still would have most of his medical insurance premiums paid for the rest of his life. His wife would enjoy paid coverage until she is 65 and Medicare-eligible. Should the taxpayers of Culver City provide medical coverage to Mr. Malsin’s wife after she is eligible for Medicare and for his daughter until she reaches age 26?
Despite the greatest of intentions, can the city really afford this for any employee anymore?
