While Retired City Manager Golfs, New Americans in El Monte Struggle to Make Ends Meet

ByEdmund Pine On February 14, 2017 4 Comments  

Vigilant as always, Lady Liberty keeps a keen watch over the republic, representing the opportunity and freedom that is America. She stands tall, with her eternal torch beckoning the poor, the tired, and the huddled masses … of El Monte, California.

Donated by a local physician in 1986, there is a 23-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty outside El Monte’s Civic Center. She may lack the commanding presence of the original, but the location of statue is surprisingly fitting, as over half of El Monte’s population is foreign born, and over a fourth of El Monte’s residents live in poverty. The poor, huddled masses are numerous here.
Among public-sector workers, however, poverty is unlikely........Mundessen is one of eight city officials collecting over $200,000 per year. He is even granted two pensions; the traditional CalPERS and a private supplemental pension known as PARS. This adds an additional 50% to retirement checks, equalizing their benefits with the unusually high pensions enjoyed by El Monte police.

One of the most amazing aspects of this is that these employees do not pay the typical employee contribution – the city of El Monte’s taxpayers pay everything. That means that not only do the taxpayers foot the entire bill for the pension itself, they pay the legally required share that employees are supposed to pay into their own pensions. This is unheard of in the private sector, where employees are partially responsible for their 401k contributions.........Pension debt is crowding out spending on other line items in the city budget, including public safety, infrastructure and social services........Continue Reading →

My Take - What I've never understood is how courts have overturned efforts to change the pension plans of these unions saying in effect this was a contract and they had to honor it. Yet I know for a fact people who retired from their Teamster's jobs had to take huge cuts in their benefits over the last few years because the union didn't have the money in those pension funds to pay it.  Why is this different?

California is doomed, and the sooner the better.  Maybe then their illegal immigration problem will go away, and the liberals will be thrown out, along with the public employees unions.  I see all these cities going to outside contractors in the future.  In cities around the nation, other than those in California, that might be a bit more expensive, but over the long run they'll save money....and their cities.  If ever there was an example of government and union corruption......California is the poster child.