MainLine - San Francisco Firefighters Local 798

Letter From the President“After many months of hard work and countless hours of negotiations, wehave come up with a real solution to our pending pension crisis. It will not bepainless though.“Letter From thePresidentTom O’ConnorAs we go to deadline the final touchesare being put on the “consensus ballotmeasure” regarding pension reform.After many months of hard work andcountless hours of negotiations, we havecome up with a real solution to our pendingpension crisis. It will not be painless,though. The ballot measure requiresthat we pay more “out-of-pocket” thanwe currently do, but it is money we arepaying into our own retirement. By doingso, the ballot measure ensures the continuedgood health of our pension systemfor years to come. Lastly, the ballot measurewe helped to craft does not unfairlypenalize City workers like Jeff Adachi’sdoes.Without any structural reforms, the City’spension and health costs would increaseto over $2 billion per year over the nextten years. The brunt of this cost increaseis the result of the economic free-fall wewitnessed in 2008-09. Nearly 30% of ouroverfunded pension fund disappeared.This wasn’t the fault of city workers, ratherit was the result of excesses on WallStreet. Regardless of the cause of theproblem, it is still imperative that we finda solution. This ballot measure is that solution.The basis of the ballot measure is a slidingscale contribution model. In effect, whenthe City is faced with an increased liabilityto fund the pension, the employeeswill pick up a share of that cost. There isalso a new tier created for all new hires, aprovision to help fund retiree health carecosts and a change in the structure of theHealth Service System to help find newefficiencies to reduce costs.For firefighters, the most relevant partsare:a sliding scale contribution (cost sharing)to the retirement system. Actuary expertspredict additional contributions of3-4.5% over the next 5 years.Beginning in 2016, employees throughoutthe City will contribute a percentageof salary into the Health Service Trustfund. There will be an increase of .25%from 2016 until 2019 when employeeswill pay 1%. The City will match with anadditional 1%.There will be a new tier for future firefightersand paramedics/EMT’s that willsecure long-term savings for the City. Forpublic safety workers the new pensionwill be 3% at age 58, based on the highest3-year average of pay.Most importantly, the way of calculatingyour pension, for current employees, willnot change.4 Main Line www.sffdlocal798.org