patrick.net

It's a crime when city workers retirement pension is close to sitting US President's wage.

RC2006 says

It's a crime when city workers retirement pension is close to sitting US President's wage.

It's even a bigger crime that to pay that, they have to tax the life out of people who have 0 retirement savings and make a lot less and work a lot harder.
Talk about taking from the needy and giving it to the greedy.

Do these pensions have "survivor's benefits?" That is, does the spouse keep collecting after the pension holder dies?

Oh it gets even better:

Local pension costs grew in California at nearly six times national rate, new data show
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article233372547.html

They are in serious spending spree where a lot of people got benefits that clearly outweigh their contribution, probably buddy deals.
Government corruption at it's finest. When something grows at rate 6 times the national average, it means there are seriously crooked deals.

When something grows at rate 6 times the national average, it means there are seriously crooked deals.

I guess they had to keep up with the college education industry. Would not want to feel left behind.

We just need to pay MOAR taxes to Sacramento - right?

OccasionalCortex says

Time for another Prop 13. This time to gut the public sector pensions and force the remainder to become solvent -- one way or another.

I'm afraid it's too late: CA population has much lower average IQ than it had in the 70s and will be easily manipulated into voting against their own interests. The recent failure of the anti gas tax prop is a good example.

Look like there was also a 1+ million dollar one time payout on some of those pensions at the beginning of retirement.

Nine years ago Lee McDougal retired as the manager of a small Southern California city and started collecting the pension he earned over 38 years in public service.

Today, his retirement earnings top a list of 1,200 public pensions in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System that exceed federal limits, according to data kept by CalPERS, which administers the plans.

Last year McDougal’s pension was about $337,000 — nearly a third more than the federal maximum for public pensions. The excess portion comes out of his former employer’s annual budget instead of the state’s public retirement system. ...

McDougal, 68, is receiving the largest supplementary payment of all the retirees on the list, although his overall pension isn’t the largest CalPERS pension in the state. That designation belongs to Michael Johnson, a former Solano County administrator who gets $402,000 per year.