Last week, the California Senate Appropriations Commmittee advanced Assembly Bill 1383, legislation which will enable yet another slippery slope to high government pension costs and crowd-out of public services.
AB 1383, introduced by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, D-Inglewood, calls for lowering the minimum retirement age for public safety employees from 57 to 55 and raising the pensionable compensation cap from $160,000 to $185,000.
The bill easily cleared the Assembly back in January with 70 votes in favor and only two against. Republican Assemblymen Carl DeMaio of San Diego and David Tangipa of Fresno were the only two with the sense to oppose it.
As Mariana Trujillo of the Reason Foundation explained in these pages last week, this legislation will primarily serve to benefit already highly-compensated employees. Indeed, Trujillo reports, “An estimated 86% of taxpayers’ costs will go toward providing additional pension benefits to the state’s highest-paid public safety employees earning more than $160,000.”
Supporters of the legislation often assert the bill is necessary to combat a retention crisis. But as Trujillo pointed out, the retention rate is a complete non-issue considering “California’s public safety workforce had a 7.7% turnover rate in 2023, effectively identical to the 7.4% rate across the state’s broader public workforce.” Further, about half of the turnover in California’s public safety workforce is due to retirement, not employees leaving due to uncompetitive pay.
Of course police and firefighters unions are rallying behind AB 1383. That police and fire union representatives turned out in droves back in June to urge a state Senate committee to pass AB 1383 is no surprise: who doesn’t want to be able to retire at a younger age and start collecting generous pensions based on high salaries?
Consider Assemblymember McKinnor’s remarks in support of the bill before a Senate committee back in June: “AB 1383 only applies prospectively recognizing the ongoing challenges and dedication of our firefighters, police, and the unique challenges and risk associated with a career as a first responder. AB 1383 represents our need to recruit and retain the next generation of first responders needed to protect the lives and property of residents across California.”
No one disagrees about the need to recruit and retain first responders and pay them accordingly. But we already do that.
Anyone pulling up TransparentCalifornia.com can see for themselves that public safety employees are already paid incredibly well and receive pensions reflecting that. Consider, for example, Sen. Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta, who voted to advance AB 1383 from the Appropriations committee. A former firefighter, Seyarto, now 63, retired over a decade ago after 35 years of service and collected in 2024 a pension of $183,764. In his final full year of work in 2014, he received total compensation of $329,764.
The point isn’t whether such payouts are appropriate, but anyone applying common sense can see that we’re not talking about underpaid or poorly compensated public employees. AB 1383 is about sweetening that deal even further for a politically powerful set of public employee unions which represent highly-paid public employees. That’s all this is. And there are real consequences to that.
Every additional dollar spent covering inflated pension obligations means one less dollar to fund public services, including, ironically, public safety services. That’s why Gov. Jerry Brown pushed through the California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act in 2012 and that’s why local governments across the state have been raising the alarm about the problem of AB 1383.
Unfortunately, it’s an election year, and so few lawmakers seem willing to exercise the bare minimum of fiscal responsibility. The way AB 1383 is shaping up, it’s looking like the only thing standing in the way of the next pension tsunami is Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto pen. God help us.