Though his San Jose City Council colleagues support Measure F, District 6 representative Pierluigi Oliverio is waging a battle against the measure, whose costs he says were kept secret before it was placed on the Nov. 8 ballot.
Oliverio told the Resident that the actuarial cost of Measure F, which aims to replace the voter-approved Measure B pension reform with a softer version negotiated by the city and its unions, wasn’t completed until two days after the council decided on Aug. 13 to take it to voters.
He said the cost estimate should have been revealed before then. He did not divulge whether council members voted during closed session to release that information first.
“I believe it should’ve been public before,” he said. “My perspective is if we’re going to put something on the ballot, we should share that information.”
Oliverio enlisted the help of former councilman Pete Constant at an Oct. 10 debate in Almaden Valley, where District 10 Councilman Johnny Khamis argued for Measure F.
In an interview later, Khamis told the Resident that the council received all necessary information and worked through the numbers it received in closed session. “They’re not astronomical numbers,” he said, noting the council was expecting an increase either way.
“We did get some actuarial costs,” Khamis said. “They weren’t large enough to stop us from going forward with Measure F. They weren’t like the pensions that Gray Davis did back in his days.”
The secrecy of Measure F negotiations isn’t unusual either, he said, adding that “all union negotiations are done behind closed doors.”
“A lot of things weren’t made public,” Khamis said. “Negotiations, for better or worse, aren’t in the public eye. I’m one of those people who have been advocating for public negotiations like Oliverio. I’d rather have people know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Khamis maintains Measure F isn’t flawed just because that information wasn’t brought to the public beforehand.
“It doesn’t mean we’re not making the right decisions,” he said. “It just means they weren’t made public.”
But Oliverio said the city’s contribution toward employees’ pensions will increase by 36 percent and he believes 401K plans for new city employees would be more prudent.
The idea of a 401K plan is a “non-starter,” Khamis said, adding that it has “never been on the table” even before he was elected.
“I don’t think the public sector wants them,” Khamis said. “In a situation where we’re having to wheel and deal…if they say this is a red line, we can’t cross it, what are we going to do.”
Oliverio argued that Measure F’s proponents haven’t addressed the city’s accountants, librarians and park maintenance workers, among others, who will also benefit if it passes.
“Measure F increases pensions for 1,300 out of 4,600 city employees, of which only 5 percent are police officers,” he said, “So if the goal is to assist police officers and 95 percent of benefits go to other people, it’s a fiscally inefficient way.”
But Khamis said Measure F will make San Jose “a more competitive city” when it comes to hiring new police officers.
“We want them to come back to our police department,” Khamis said. “We want them, when they finish at our academies, to stay and work at our police department. This is why I felt it was in our best interests as a community to support Measure F, so we can fix problems with Measure B and still save money.”
