A number of former Marin County executives who retired after long careers get annual pensions that are bigger than the salaries of the officials who replaced them at the Civic Center.
In a situation that reflects the robust benefits of a county pension system that favors veteran officials, a recent 3 percent cost-of-living boost for county retirees means that Mark Riesenfeld, the county’s former chief executive, is making more in retirement than the executive who replaced him, County Administrator Matthew Hymel.
Retiree Riesenfeld’s $7,560 cost-of-living raise brings his annual pension to $259,680, about $6,000 more than the $253,822 Hymel now earns working in the job Riesenfeld used to have.
Hymel said he is not inclined to comment on individual retirees but “I will say that I have a great appreciation for our former employees who dedicated over 30 years of service to our community.”
Riesenfeld’s retirement pay will leap-frog Hymel’s working pay April 1, the effective date of a cost-of-living raise averaging about 3 percent for nearly 3,000 retirees. The raise is calculated on base pension at retirement. The pension board two weeks ago signed off on a cost-of-living calculation, triggering an automatic raise for retirees as approved by elected officials in labor contracts. Participants in the county system are not enrolled in Social Security, which gave beneficiaries a 1.7 percent hike last month.
“Does this make any sense at all?” wondered Dick Tait of Mill Valley, criticizing a Marin program allowing retirees to make more than they did while working — as well as more than those who replaced them on the job.
Tait, a civil engineer who has studied the Civic Center’s pension and pay benefit programs as a member of Marin’s Citizens for Sustainable Pension Plans organization, said the “overly generous” county pension system favors veteran executives, and not rank-and-file employees, because pensions are based on final pay, years on the job and age.
Examples of former Marin officials making more in retirement than those replacing them on the job “illustrate the unfairness of a complex law that was written in 1937” governing the county system, Tait said. “While amended numerous times over the decades, the law is still flawed and long overdue for a complete revision.”
Other examples
County pensioners who get more in retirement than those who replaced them on the job include former fire Chief Ken Massucco, whose $210,800 pension as of April 1 will be $14,000 more than fire Chief Jason’s Weber’s $196,726 annual paycheck. Weber’s pay in turn is just slightly more than the $194,400 pension of former county fire Chief Stan Rowan. Retired deputy fire Chief Jim Selfridge’s $179,700 pension tops deputy fire Chief Mark Brown’s $173,867 salary.
Former county Undersheriff Dennis Finnegan, with a pension of $198,000 a year, makes more than Undersheriff Mike Ridgway, who is paid $181,314. Former probation chief Ron Baylo’s $173,600 pension tops Chief Probation Officer Mike Daly’s $171,933 pay.
The salaries of top county executives were frozen for five years during the recession, until last July, when they got a 2.8 percent cost-of-living increase and, a few months later, an average 2.6 percent “equity” boost. Pensions for many retirees escalated at least 2 percent a year over the recession period, with raises calculated on base pay at retirement.
The annual cost of living escalator for retirees adds up. Former Novato police chief Brian Brady, whose salary was $156,000 a year when he retired in 2003, now receives a California Public Employees Retirement System or CalPERS pension of almost $200,000 — much of which is tax free because he claimed an on-the-job shoulder injury.
Pension plus salary
Some retirees who get pensions from the Marin system continue to work in public service by signing on with agencies enrolled in the CalPERS program.
Tiburon police Chief Mike Cronin, for example, gets a $206,000 annual Marin pension — $6,000 more than last year — for his service with San Rafael police, where he retired as chief. That’s in addition to what in 2013 was reported as his $155,000 paycheck and $47,560 benefit package as Tiburon police chief. Cronin’s Tiburon service makes him eligible for a CalPERS pension as well.
Roland M. Katz, head of the Marin Association of Public Employees, the biggest union at the Civic Center, is quick to point out that pensions for rank-and-file workers are far less than those of top brass. Many rank-and-file retirees will get an average $648 more a year thanks to the cost-of-living boost, he said. “That’s not enough for a cup of coffee a day,” he said.
“Regarding the possibility that some retirees will have a pension that is more per month than the salary of the people who replaced them … that’s an anomaly,” Katz said, noting Civic Center officials didn’t get a raise for five years. “Although it may make for a catching sentence or two in a news article, (it) gives a distorted sense of the pension system,” the union chief said.
The average pension at the Civic Center for lower-paid rank-and-file workers is about $32,400, while higher-paid public safety workers cash in at an average of $65,000.
Average: $38,253
As of June 30, 2013, the most recent date for which figures are available, “the average annual benefit for all retirement benefit types — service, disability and survivor — was $38,253,” according to pension chief Jeff Wickman, head of the Marin County Employees Retirement Association.
Wickman noted that the state’s new pension reform law, which imposes modest cutbacks on benefits for new employees, includes a $140,424 limit on compensation used to calculate pensions for new employees, a cap that will curb payouts for them when they retire in two decades or so.
Under the county program, benefits for employees at the top drive overall costs, including $784 million in unfunded pension and health liability, or the potential debt faced by a future generation of Marin taxpayers if the stock market tanks. As it stands, 36 percent of the Marin pension system’s tab is generated by the 13 percent of top brass who get pensions of more than $80,000 a year. Another 32 percent of pension payroll covers the 65 percent of pensioners who collect less than $40,000 a year.
The California Policy Center, a fiscal reform nonprofit based in Sacramento, reported that an average pension of $91,742 went to the 308 retirees with 30 years in the county program benefiting the Civic Center, the city of San Rafael and the Novato and Southern Marin fire districts.
The CalPERS program, in which most cities and special districts are enrolled, provided an average $63,448 pension to career employees statewide. The average jumped to $92,865 for the 104 pensioners on its payroll who retired from Marin agencies after 30 years of service.
Riesenfeld tops the Marin system pension list at $260,000. Heading Marin’s CalPERS retiree list at $224,000 is former Corte Madera fire chief Robert C. Fox.
