Benefits under the electoral microscope

Public employee compensation will be the issue of the next five years. Even in San Francisco, voters are upset enough that they forced a vote on Nov. 2 to contain compensation.

Public workers are right to worry that some factions are just out to get them. But the reason this issue is rising to the fore is the disparity between what happens in the world of taxpayers vs. the world of government. Taxpayers won’t long tolerate paying for benefits they cannot afford for their own families.

In San Francisco, this means “A typical San Francisco resident with one dependent pays $953 a month for health care, while the typical city employee pays less than $10. In 2009, San Francisco’s deputy police chief earned $516,000 in cash compensation and retired with a $230,000-a-year pension—a package that could cost the city $8 million over the balance of his life.”

Any wonder that voters are upset?