Afriend of mine (well, he won't be a friend if he reads this) retired from the Long Beach Fire Dept. a few years ago. When he got on, he got a couple years credit for service during the Viet Nam War (he never left the states). In 28 years of service he retired as captain. He was at that rank for maybe 15% of his career. Now, he lives up in Idaho with the rest of the retirees and pulls down 98K/yr in retirement! Forever. With medical. Now this cat ain't that old, 60 IIRC. So he's gonna be on the books for awhile.
Long Beach, like CA in general, is in a huge deficit. The pensions they pay alone are a huge part of the budget. I'm wondering if the city ought to declare bankruptcy and re-deal these excessive pensions. My
former friend had to make engineer before he could be a captain, so I bet he could drive a farm tractor pretty well (he's initially from Iowa
). Or run a backhoe.
It gets better. His wife, whom he met at the hospital when he was a paramedic, is an RN. She probably worked as an RN for 5 years before going into management. Last I knew, after they relocated to IA, she was the County Coroner. That's gotta pay pretty good, even in BF'dE. She may be retired now too, I don't know.
Whaddya think? We sit here as the poorest city in CA, 6th poorest in the US (pop 100K+) and we pay 1000's of pensions, some as high as 90% of salary at retirement. I'd pull the rug out in a heartbeat. If the rest of the country is gonna go hungry, I'll be damned if this guy is "entitled" to almost 100K every year.