Triple Dipping
Chief’s disease: You may have heard of it, or you may not.
But “chief’s disease” is the name that has been given to a situation under which state public safety employees retire claiming work related injuries and are able to combine regular retirement benefits with workers’ compensation and disability benefits to receive compensation higher than they have ever earned.
Then, many go out and get gainful employment in the same line of work for another government agency (yes, that is the work from which they are supposedly permanently “disabled”), while keeping all of their retirement and disability benefits. So, they effectively get three salaries: a pension, a disability payment and a regular full new salary.
And worst of all, this triple dipping is actually legal under current law. OK, you say, it may be legal but it is clearly indefensible and it should be easy to fix the law. Well, welcome to the obscene, overreaching power of the government employee unions in California.
Two bills to make partial fixes in the “chief’s disease” abuse have appeared in the Labor Committee, of which I am vice chairman in the Senate. The first, SB 916, was authored by Democrat Jackie Speier. It would have reduced the workers’ compensation payments if the combination of workers’ comp and disability payments exceeded 90% of the employee’s salary.
Yes, this was a good and reasonable bill authored by a Democrat in a Democrat-dominated committee. But the unions opposed it vociferously, and it did not pass.
Then last week, a milder reform (AB 804) was offered by Republican Assemblyman Jay LaSuer, himself a former police officer, which would have disallowed a disability payment only to those who then get work in the same job from which they are supposed to be disabled. This also did not pass against the union opposition.
How can the unions justify this kind of excess? I asked that exact question in committee of the various union representatives. They answered that “chief’s disease” is legal and should remain legal because pension, workers’ comp, disability payments and whatever job you have now are all separate compensations for separate things and you should be able to collect from them all.
So, I guess they think you can collect disability if you are not disabled, retirement if you are not retired, and compensation for lost wages that is more than the wages you have ever earned.
If that isn’t an example of how excessive and abusive the union’s power has gotten in Sacramento, I don’t know what is. That is why we need significant reforms to curb their power so they cannot continue to abuse all of us.
John Campbell
State Senator
R-Irvine
Housing
Only 11% of workers can afford to buy the average home in Orange County, according to the 2005 Orange County Community Indicators report. And OC executives state that their top barrier to doing business in the region is the cost of housing employees.
The homeownership crisis in our region already is severely impacting businesses and working families, as it becomes harder to attract and retain a qualified and talented workforce when those workers cannot afford to buy a home in our county.
Without action, the housing affordability crisis could rapidly eat away at OC’s long-term economic stability and competitiveness.
The Orange County Business Council has responded by committing to take all measures necessary to:
Address OC’s major and systemic crisis in housing production and affordability
Assure a sufficient supply of decent, affordable workforce housing for OC’s employers.
One example is our support of California State University, Fullerton, and its homeownership initiatives. In early April, the Fullerton City Council approved a 42-unit housing complex, University Heights, which will provide affordable housing for working families in OC,in this case, Cal State Fullerton faculty and staff.
Unlike traditional homeownership programs, at University Heights a buyer leases the land from the Cal State University Fullerton Housing Authority and purchases only the house. This land lease approach will allow the homes to maintain affordability and will ensure that homeownership will remain in the sights of future faculty and staff members.
The effort to bring this plan forward involved many,and a unique and innovative loan fund established by OC businesses.
The loan fund provided a key pre-development, low-interest loan to the developer, Valeo Cos.
At the urging of affordable homeownership advocates, Business Council partner The Orange County Affordable HomeOwnership Alliance created this pre-development loan fund to lower one barrier that often prevents affordable housing projects,access to early stage funds. The alliance’s loan fund, administered by Neighborhood Housing Services of Orange County, was created last summer with a $1 million loan from Merrill Lynch and augmented last fall with a $500,000 loan from Wells Fargo.
Garrett Gin
Chairman, Orange County Affordable HomeOwnership Alliance, Orange County Business Council Board Member
Irvine
Third Party
A recent Washington Post survey found “the overall electorate is annoyed by both parties and the Washington politicians.” Even at this early date, voters believe a third party presidential candidate is a good idea for 2008.
Which begs the question: Who would be a good third party candidate? Ross Perot found the sledding awfully difficult back in 1992, when he first ran as an outsider. Other business leaders, like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Apple’s Steven Jobs, sometimes are mentioned.
In my opinion, the only candidates worth their third party stripes are former U.S. senator and defense secretary William Cohen and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state Colin Powell.
Both are imminently qualified to be president or vice president. Because Cohen has been elected to office, I give the nod to him. Which leaves Powell to be his vice presidential running mate.
Interestingly, both are Republicans who served Democratic presidents. Both are savvy about the ways of Washington and the world. Perhaps, most important, both come across as being more interested in the state of the union than they are the state of their own political futures. All of which means, Cohen and Powell are in the right place at the right time, should a credible third party emerge.
Denny Freidenrich
First Strategies LLC
Laguna Beach
