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Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane has sent a letter to officials in charge of the county’s retirement system urging them to release figures about individual pensions.
“While I respect the Board of Retirement’s responsibility to make decisions in the best interests of its members, it does not serve anyone well to shroud a public retirement system in unnecessary secrecy,” Zane wrote in the letter dated Feb. 15. “To withhold information about how much public employees are being paid in pensions only fuels mistrust between local government and the broader public.”
The Sonoma County Employees Retirement Association board is currently locked in a legal battle with The Press Democrat over the board’s refusal to release those figures, despite recent court rulings that makes clear the public should have access. The state’s largest public employee retirement systems already disclose such figures.
The letter comes two days after we published an editorial, (“Stop secrecy,” Sunday) in which the PD encouraged the board to drop its legal battle and release the names and amounts received by former workers who get taxpayer-funded pensions.
In her letter, Zane makes clear that she is speaking “only for herself as one county supervisor, but I believe that this is an issue of open government and transparency.”
She also notes, “I am confident that your Board could craft a resolution that meets the needs of SCERA members while also providing transparency than the public is currently being afforded.”
This also comes on the heels of the announced retirement of Rod Dole, Sonoma County’s auditor and controller, who is expected to step down after 35 years of public service with an annual pension that is at least equal to his annual salary of $208,600. The exact amount, however, is unknown.
Dole is a member of the retirement board.
- Paul Gullixson
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Thank you Supervisor Zane for being the first Sonoma County Supervisor in history to acknowledge the need for transparency and honesty with respect to the pension issue. I talked to a young Sonoma County worker today and he said,”…ya know all this talk about pensions…I know there won’t be a anything left when I retire.” Besides, he may be laid off this year with less than ten years service. The struggle ahead is not against our public servants but FOR preserving their jobs and vital services they provide for our community. Supervisor Zane understands this.
There are now more retirees than active workers in Sonoma County with the possibility there will be almost 5000 retirees and fewer than 3000 workers in the next four years. There used to be 4400 County workers providing to the least of thee among us.
With 1/3rd of the $1.8 Billion pension portfolio derived from $600 Million of Pension Obligation Bonds ($550 Million still owed); Sonoma County has by far the highest per capita bonded indebtedness in the State of California. Without critical reforms Sonoma County will cease to be able to provide critical services that they have performed for generations.
Got to http://www.reformsonoma.blogspot.com for more information. If our elected officials continue to prove themselves incapable of reforming the system from within, it is time We The People reform the system from without.
As long as the retirement formula is transparent, why publish names and exact amounts? Does it really matter whether we know Dole’s pension to the last penny? If we know the formula, we know enough.
Nobody has adequately explained why they need the names. I can understand the salary to the position, but why actual names, especially of those already retired. Geez, stores can’t even ask for your zip codes but now public employees have to be “outed” for their current or retirement salaries with name attached, because why?
First off, @”Just me” Ms. Zane’s salary is public record.
But that brings me to a second point: private sector employees VALUE the privacy attached to their compensation. I understand why public sector employees have to give up that right, but should they not be remunerated for the value that they give up by surrendering that right? Or put another way, if I’m a high caliber employee being courted by two employers and they both offer the same level of compensation, but one has to disclose my salary to the public and the other does not, will I not choose the employer that is not required to disclose?
This won’t be a popular point of view on this site, but it’s food for thought….
Dear Ms. Zane,
Let’s start with disclosing your salary and how much you have already cut your pay. Or have you cut your pay yet? If not, start leading by example please. Don’t be an elitist like the rest of them.