Yet Still Even More on The Coming War Between Public and Private Sector Workers…Chap MCMXIII
From Aaron Proctor's Twitter feed comes news of a blood-rage-inducing-and-perfectly-legal-ripoffsky of taxpayers in Ben Franklin's hometown:
Camille Cates Barnett will get nearly $50,000 annually from the city pension fund for the rest of her life after June 30, when she leaves her post as Philadelphia's managing director after two years, five months, and 24 days.
On the same day that a City Council committee moved to close the loophole that allows short-time employees such as Barnett to buy credit in the city's pension fund based on public service elsewhere, the Board of Pensions and Retirement revealed that Barnett had done just that.
Barnett has paid $122,303 to become vested in the pension plan, according to the Mayor's Office and the Pension Board, a privilege unionized employees are entitled to only after serving five years.
She had already made some payments toward the buy-in this year, and paid the balance of $106,564 on April 15.
As noted above, this loophole—which only applied to non-union-represented workers, by the way—has been closed. But you gotta wonder how many other similar scams are built into Philly's and other cities' pensions and benefits plans. My wild guesstimate: a lot.
Reason on the war between public and private sector workforces.
