Sometimes politics is described as a pendulum swinging back and forth: one side may be very successful for a while, but eventually political momentum tends to swing back the other way. At the City of San Jose in recent years, the pendulum has swung very far in the pro pension-reform direction. There has been a sense among pension reform advocates on the City Council that they can do no wrong. As often happens, however, when elected officials become too impressed with their own genius, flaws are beginning to appear with their policy work and the pendulum is starting to swing back the other way.
The reason for this shift is that the City has begun experiencing severe recruitment and retention problems that can be traced back at least in part to Measure B, the City’s pension reform ballot measure. Problems with retention in the Police Department have seen a good deal of coverage in the press, but similar problems can be found throughout the organization—the Water Pollution Control Plant, the Department of Transportation, the Planning Department, and other City offices have all had trouble keeping employees. The rationale for pension reform was always that it would allow us to preserve and restore service delivery to residents. Now that it appears that portions of Measure B are actually degrading rather than improving service delivery, it’s becoming harder to claim that it is without flaw.
That’s not to say that we should swing the pendulum all the way back the other way. My position for the past three and a half years has been that we need to take a balanced approach: some level of pension reform is necessary, but we need to be careful and strategic in how we craft it. During the development of Measure B in 2011 and early 2012, I put forward alternative reform proposals that I thought were more balanced. Portions of my proposals ended up being incorporated into Measure B but many of them were ignored. In acknowledgement that some level of pension reform was needed and that at least some of my proposals were adopted, I did end up supporting Measure B—but have always maintained that there are still flaws in the measure that need to be corrected.
Now that the problems with Measure B are becoming clear, there is an opportunity for the City Council to make the needed changes. A few weeks ago, I issued a reform proposal (found here) that would adjust some of the restrictions on benefit levels—such as accrual rate and retirement age—as set out in Measure B. (Many of the changes I suggest are the same ones that were ignored when I recommended them back in 2011, before Measure B went on the ballot.) Adopting these changes would not mean completely repealing Measure B, but it would be a way to move towards a more balanced, reasonable retirement system that could both save the City money and make it a more competitive employer.
Don Rocha represents District 9 on the San Jose City Council
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