"Unlike California’s state government, the city understands the need for pension reform.
24 February 2012
Jerry Brown paints a bleak picture of the future of “civilization” if Californians refuse to back his proposed tax increase, now vying for a place on the November ballot. If voters reject the initiative, warned the governor in December, it would reveal a deep “skepticism of public service” and send a message that “the common institution called government is not something we want to invest in.” The stark choice before voters, the governor says, is higher taxes or diminished public services. But in San Jose, the state’s third-largest city, a liberal Democratic mayor wants to give voters a third option: stretching taxpayers’ dollars by slashing the excessive costs of government services, especially pensions and other benefits for the people who administer those services."
Yeah, those mean ol' public workers... How dare they expect that the contractual obligations that they signed on for, and paid into, would actually be there as promised when they retired.
Based on reading the article, the San Jose plan does not affect anyone already retired. They have a new retirement plan for new hires (no one seems to have a problem with that), and are asking current employees to pay more towards their pension for the same benefits, or accept reduced benefits.
If the current employees want to keep their current benefits there appears to only be two choices. Either charge the employees more for their own pensions, or raise taxes as Gov Brown wants and have all tax payers subsidize their pensions.
