Unsustainable system

After reading last week’s commentary, from retired Sonoma County probation officer Robert Bulwa, challenging Dan Drummond’s criticisms of Measure A and the Sonoma County retirement system; I thank Mr. Bulwa for his service to Sonoma County, but would correct some of his misunderstandings, about the incredibly generous retirement benefits presently provided. Since retired County Supervisors and County Auditor Rod Dole, approved without legally required public notices and actuarial studies, massive 50 percent retroactive pension increases in 2004; there is no retirement system in the entire state of California more generous than Sonoma County’s. These decisions created huge unfunded liabilities, increasing pension costs 500 percent, along with tremendous social consequences; eventually undermining every county function once provided for generations. If one goes to www.transparentcalifornia.com, the present average salary and benefit for Sonoma County workers is $128,082 +/-, with the bottom 500 averaging $72,141 and top 500 averaging $214,123. Assistant County Administrator Chris Thomas will confirm this. Mr. Bulwa countered Mr. Drummond’s assertion that the unfunded liability is not $900 million, indeed it’s well over $1 billion, with not only the retirement funds unfunded liability of $350 million, but also the county’s $500 million in Pension Obligation Bonds, which are absolutely part of Sonoma County’s unfunded liability. We also have an unfunded liability for retiree medical of $400 million. These liabilities are a loan, paid back by the taxpayers at 6-7.5 percent interest, over the next 20-28 years. The $1 billion-plus liability is paid back with another $1 billion in interest. A rule of thumb is that every $1 of unfunded liability is paid back with $1 of interest, resulting in a payout from the county budget of over $2 billion over the next 28 years. This system is not Mr. Bulwa’s, or county retirees’ fault; it is all of our faults. We have become a victim of our own devices. My generation, the first wave of retiring baby boomers, who control the unions, the management, the electeds;  have allowed a system to be created that is not sustainable, that is increasingly burdening the next generations with quadrupled tuitions, larger classrooms with shorter school days, and many becoming indentured servants to huge high interest college loans. Our roads and infrastructure are failing, our communities have become zombie lands with homeless shuffling the streets and services once available to my generation to help the least of those among us are no longer available. Most of our public servants are given a salary and retirement benefit for one years’ service, without fully funding the benefit for the year of service. If you can’t fund a benefit today, how can you fund it tomorrow? We cannot expect the next generations to be capable of paying these massive debts, while all the educational opportunities and programs that benefited my generation are taken away. Perhaps the next human rights movement, just like the suffragettes and the civil rights movements of the 20th century, should be one of intergenerational equity. You cannot burden the next generation with massive debts and obligations of the previous generation, if we did not set aside enough to provide for our own retirements, why should we bankrupt the next generation to pay for it?
Tom Lynch is a Guerneville contractor and longtime advocate of pension reform in Sonoma County.