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The Legislature wants to make putting on a California police or firefighter uniform more lucrative.
Three bills are moving forward that would either raise pay for state firefighters or boost retirement benefits for public safety personnel.
Their supporters say the measures are meant to compensate people who risk their lives for others and who by the nature of their jobs are exposed to career-shortening hazards. The proposals are sailing through the Legislature with bipartisan support and overwhelming majorities of lawmakers voting for them.
“Every day has a cost, and it’s one that we pay with our lives,” Darrell Roberts, president of the union California Professional Firefighters said at a recent hearing where he spoke in favor of a bill that would let public safety employees retire at 55, two years earlier than currently allowed. “This job is physically and mentally demanding in the extreme and asking us to work until 57 is pushing us not just to our limit but beyond it.”
The proposals carry significant price tags and could potentially drive up annual spending by hundreds of millions of dollars. They could also swell the state’s long-term liabilities by billions of dollars. That could make them a tough sell to Gov. Gavin Newsom given that the state anticipates deficits in the near future.
The two retirement bills in particular are rekindling memories of California’s pension crisis…..
