Since when do we pay regular desk Fairfax County employees 50% more(full salary plus) in pension then private companies and allow them to retire at 50 when normal private business retirement is 65?

I can see police and fire fighters for hazardous work, but regular office workers and trash employees?

Man we are getting are taxes ass raped! No wonder this county is debt!

ain't this kind of a nationwide thing for state and local govt. employees
and whats worse is this another one of those huge financial holes we's gotin this country cause there ain't enough in the coffers to meet these "obligations"

Fleezing of County Taxes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Since when do we pay regular desk Fairfax County
> employees 50% more(full salary plus) in pension
> then private companies and allow them to retire at
> 50 when normal private business retirement is 65?
>
> I can see police and fire fighters for hazardous
> work, but regular office workers and trash
> employees?
>
> Man we are getting are taxes ass raped! No wonder
> this county is debt!


A lot of defined benefit plans work that way. If it is any consolation, they are being replaced by cheaper workers with less generous retirement and benefit packages.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm

The pensions for police, fire, EMTs, etc. are also bloated by including overtime pay in the calculations.

The average age of the local government workforce is in the mid-50's. The younger and "cheaper" workers are too few to offset the high cost of pensions. In addition, they won't be asked to make up the shortfalls. The employer, I mean taxpayers, will... What do the government employees contribute to pension funding compared to the employer/taxpayer share? I saw an old FCTA web site had the taxpayer share around 15% compared to 4% for teachers.

You live in one of the richest counties in the country..stop whining...pay whatever is due to county employees. The OP is probably a lie anyway..no background..no specific examples...jusy hyperboli designed to ensight an emotional response...propaganda.

Registered Voter...a Big talking coward..big man on FFXU...little man in life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2010 12:39PM by Vince(1).

Now that the job market sucks and all the people who flocked here for high paying jobs in the private sector are getting axed, its time to hate on the public employees who for many years got no bonuses, pay increments or cost of living increases. When times get better it will be back to figuring out how to spend those 6 figure salaries and laughing at the pay scales of civil servants. fu

public unions are complacent just like the big banks. they think the rescue of the economy has to run through them first.

This month, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual look at compensation by region, by employer, by occupation, by just about any way you want to slice or dice it. Here's what it shows for Hampton Roads, as of July 2009:

The average full-time state and local government worker in our region earned $23.46 per hour. The average private sector worker made $18.87.

You might pass that off as an artifact of differences in the labor force of the two — that the private sector has, for example, more low-end service jobs. And there's an element of that. But the BLS handily provides numbers by occupation, so you can line up apples with apples.

And when you look many of them, government workers have the advantage. Take secretaries and administrative assistants. In Hampton Roads, they make an average of $16.86 per hour in government offices, compared to $13.72 in the private sector. In our area, health workers get $29.63, on average, in government jobs and $23.80 in private industry. The one place government workers are at a disadvantage is in the top managerial ranks.

But wages don't tell the whole story — about compensation, or about why governments are in financial distress.

It's the benefits. The paid leave. The health insurance. And especially, the pensions.

The BLS estimates that nationally, private industry pays $8.03 per hour in benefits while state and local governments pay $13.65 per hour. Add together pay and benefits on that national scale, and government work earns a 45 percent premium over the private sector.

That helps explain the squeeze, as governments try to balance the promises they have made to workers against taxpayers' ability and willingness to provide the money to honor those promises.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-ed_compensation_edit_0401apr01,0,1796222.story

This study is based on Hampton Roads area. Have you been to Hampton Roads?
Its NOT Fairfax, where most of the tax money comes from for the state, its the economic engine for the entire state.

So I guess if you want a very slanted view of compensation for public vs. private, you might have to go to some craphole and extrapulate that it somehow applies to another place in the state, like Fairfax.

Last I heard, people from Hampton Roads would love to live in Fairfax, but anyone from Fairfax isn't selling their house to move to Hampton Roads.

If you ran that same study up here, you would undoubtedly get a different outcome.

Less of Les Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> If you ran that same study up here, you would
> undoubtedly get a different outcome.

I agree, In Fairafx and the DC area the government workers earn at least a 50% premium over the private sector.

Some stats:
Area
Hampton Roads: 1700 square miles, approximately.
Fairfax County: 395 Square Miles.

Population
Hampton Roads: 1.7 Million
Fairfax County: 1.1 Million

Unemployment Rate
Hampton Roads: Nearly 8%
Fairfax County: 4.3%



And wait for it, the real kicker...

Average Income
Hampton Roads: $39.950
Fairfax County: $100,318

Les Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The pensions for police, fire, EMTs, etc. are also
> bloated by including overtime pay in the
> calculations.

You are wrong. Overtime is not a part of the calculation. Stop making stuff up when you have no idea what you are talking about.

Creditable compensation includes all compensation for a year including overtime. For benefits calculations, they use the three highest but cap them at $200K. Pension padding pre-retirement in the public sector is rampant.

Basically, the government employees are basically doing nothing to fully fund their own pensions. They're protesting a proposed increase of less than 1 percent to 5 percent.

The Virginia Retirement System Board of Trustees is recommending an increase in state contributions to 13.46 percent of salary from 11.26 percent. The board is also recommending that local school districts increase their contributions from 13.81 percent of salary to 17.91 percent of salary.

But you are not going to address the glaring discrepancy between the median household incomes between Fairfax and Hampton Roads, Les?

Come on, you brought up the study, you should defend it.

Fairfax County is the best run local government in the entire Country. Fairfax is one of the richest Counties in the entire country. County employees can only retire at age 50 with 30 years of service. County employees have not recieved raises in two year. The County workforce is payed way less than most private sector "Welfare" Defense contractors. Tax payers are getting a bargin!

Les Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Creditable compensation includes all compensation
> for a year including overtime. For benefits
> calculations, they use the three highest but cap
> them at $200K. Pension padding pre-retirement in
> the public sector is rampant.
>
> Basically, the government employees are basically
> doing nothing to fully fund their own pensions.
> They're protesting a proposed increase of less
> than 1 percent to 5 percent.
>
> The Virginia Retirement System Board of Trustees
> is recommending an increase in state contributions
> to 13.46 percent of salary from 11.26 percent. The
> board is also recommending that local school
> districts increase their contributions from 13.81
> percent of salary to 17.91 percent of salary.


Fairfax County Police & Fire are not a part of VRS. Check the thread title & get your facts straight. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Not actually knowing what he is talking about never stopped him from commenting.

He still hasn't addressed my question.

RDang!

Fleezing of County Taxes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Since when do we pay regular desk Fairfax County
> employees 50% more(full salary plus) in pension
> then private companies and allow them to retire at
> 50 when normal private business retirement is 65?
>
> I can see police and fire fighters for hazardous
> work, but regular office workers and trash
> employees?
>
> Man we are getting are taxes ass raped! No wonder
> this county is debt!


You should include Teachers in that category with Police and Firefighters. Teaching is an insane job, it requires countless hours of re-qualifying collegiate courses, and once you get to the Middle School level, hell yeah it's dangerous.

==================================================================================================
"And if any women or children get their legs torn off, or faces caved in, well, it's tough shit for them." -2LT. Bert Stiles, 505th, 339th (On Berlin Bombardier Mission, 1944).

Teachers get three pensions:

1.Social security (at age 65);
2.Virginia Retirement (after 30 years of working); and
3.Employee Retirement Fairfax County (after 30 years of working).

http://www.fcta.org/data/state/vrs-info/2010-02-19compareyourpensionwithateacherspension

The basic problem with the local government is that the pay for field-level workers, such as teachers, police, fire, etc., becomes excessive over time because of seniority-based pay. In other fields, you have to go into management and have more responsibility over many more people as time progresses to justify the higher pay.

Les Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Teachers get three pensions:
>
> 1.Social security (at age 65);
> 2.Virginia Retirement (after 30 years of working);
> and
> 3.Employee Retirement Fairfax County (after 30
> years of working).
>
> http://www.fcta.org/data/state/vrs-info/2010-02-19
> compareyourpensionwithateacherspension
>
> The basic problem with the local government is
> that the pay for field-level workers, such as
> teachers, police, fire, etc., becomes excessive
> over time because of seniority-based pay. In
> other fields, you have to go into management and
> have more responsibility over many more people as
> time progresses to justify the higher pay.

Wrong again. I like the fact that you ignore getting slam dunked earlier on the VRS issue & just move along to the next thing. Hilarious....go back under your rock.

Les Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The pensions for police, fire, EMTs, etc. are also
> bloated by including overtime pay in the
> calculations.

pensions are calculated on your last 3 years of base pay, not o/t. ignorant whiny bitch.