Politics & Government
Governor Poised to Sign Pension Reform Wednesday
Patch takes a look at Los Altos and area school districts employees' pensions.
With the Governor Jerry Brown poised to sign the pension reform bill in Los Angeles Wednesday, Patch is looking at pension costs in our area.
We’ve focused on five school districts in which Los Altos children attend school for this second story on pensions.
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These include Los Altos School District with 160 retirees, Mountain View-Los Altos Unified High School District (MVLA) with 175 retirees, Palo Alto Unified School District, with 473 retirees, Cupertino Union School District with 484 retirees and Fremont Union High School District with 399 retirees.
Of those five, 67 are members of what reformers call the $100,000 club.
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Are such pensions fair or excessive for the level of service, education and accomplishment of public sector managers versus their private sector peers?
And are the $100,000 clubbers representative of ordinary state or local worker?
Of course not. For example, of the 175 MVLA retirees, a dozen are part of the $100,000 club, but 50 MVLA retirees received benefits of less than $20,000 in 2011. And 31 of those 50 received less than $10,000, in monthly payments as low as $162.92.
A fact sheet from CalPERS shows that the average state worker who retired in 2010-2011 will get $3,065 a month.
Is that too much, too little or just right?
Public attitudes may be influenced by the fact that private sector pensions are becoming rare.
U.S. News & World Reports says just 31 percent of employees have pensions. Unionized employees are far more likely to have pensions.
Among other reforms, the legislation raises the retirement age for most new employees from 55 to 67 to receive full benefits. It also eliminates so-called "double dipping" and caps the pensions of highly paid retired workers.
Critics have said it didn't go far enough. Brown said it was the most that could be gotten at this stage and it isn’t the end of his efforts.
Below are tables of the top 5 in each district whose pensions were $100,000 in 2011, and how many others there are with pensions over $100,000.
Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District (Top 5 of 12)
Name
Years of Service
2011 Gross Pension
Richard Fisher
38.36
$181,106
Gayle Larson
35.95
$138.375
Linda Sommer
38.4
$127,370
Shoji Wada
40.52
$122,794
Hubert Riddell
37.99
$115,596
Palo Alto Unified School District (Top 5 of 31)
Name
Years of Service
2011 Gross Pension
Mary Callan
29.8
$229,780
Robert Golton
41.09
$204,457
Gerald Matranga
40.67
$196,747
Marie Scigliano
40.53
$169,523
Linda Common
39.83
$160,889
Fremont Union High School District (Top 5 of 24)
Name
Years of Service
2011 Gross Pension
Paul Cheng
37.76
$197,612
Keet Hamilton
39.79
$180,863
Mary Stone
36.62
$151,999
Ethal Kopal
41.52
$150,068
Richard Amlin
38.16
$145,843
Cupertino Union School District (Top 5 of 22)
Name
Years of Service
2011 Gross Pension
William Bragg
38.25
$178,960
Jones Wong
40.21
$130,909
James Paul
41.2
$129,329
Patricia Vidmar
37.31
$126,977
Marjorie Zellner
36.25
$119,993
Los Altos School District (Top 5 of 9)
Name
Years of Service
2011 Gross Pension
Timothy Justus
38.49
$206,114
Margaret Gratiot
36.74
$179,335
Patricia Weisman
36.33
$152,324
David McNulty
41.33
$132,245
Richard Liewer
36.87
$130,367
—Patch Editor Tom Abate contributed to this report
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