No on Measure L: Employees should pay more for benefits

Recently, this page carried 10 reasons to support Measure L They were generally all about what might happen if you don’t, and that’s exactly why you should vote NO on Measure L.

Measure L is a proposed half-cent sales tax increase “for unrestricted general revenue purposes” (Section 3.30.030 E of the ordinance). In other words, more money for government with no guarantee on how it will be spent.

Like all tax increases, the proponents of Measure L threaten “devastating” cuts, crime, and other bad things if the tax does not pass. The proponents of Measure L would like you to believe that the funds from Measure L will do a lot of things. They cannot make those guarantees. Do not be fooled.

Measure L is all about funding pensions.

Councilwoman JoAnne Mounce was honest when she said, “The cause of this point blank is CalPERS and our pension fund, and I have spent the last two years of my life fighting with CalPERS.” (Lodi City Council meeting, June 20, 2018)

Measure L is needed because the pension fund is unsustainable. The proponents of Measure L want you to pay for it by increasing your taxes.

If your neighbors didn’t save for their retirement or made bad investments would you pay for their retirement? I doubt it, and neither would I.

Yet, that’s exactly what our city council and the proponents of Measure L are asking you to do — to pay more for pensions that we already pay the majority of.

The taxpayers of Lodi — you and me — pay between 21.797 percent and 44.754 percent of the cost of the pension fund while the employees only pay 6.75 percent to 11.25 percent.

In case you missed that, the person getting the benefit is paying 6.75 percent to 11.25 percent while you pay 21.797 percent to 44.754 percent of the bill. Shouldn’t that percentage be more balanced?

This isn’t about taking anything away from people that have earned it. This is about fairness. The person receiving the benefit should pay more to get it. Employees in other California cities are paying more.

• 12 percent in Oroville

• 12 percent or more in Rocklin

• 15 percent in Paso Robles

• 12 percent

• 12.5 percent in Palo Alto Why can’t Lodi’s employees pay more for their benefits?

Perhaps now you can see why the Lodi Professional Firefighters union contributed $15,000 to the Yes on L campaign. That union wants you to pay for their benefits. They are your neighbor that didn’t save enough and now they want you to do it!

Measure L does nothing to solve Lodi’s fiscal problems including the problems with the unsustainable pension fund. All Measure L does is kick the can down the street so that we can do this again in a few years. We are constantly spending more and getting less. Measure L will just make this worse.

In Lodi’s most recent general fund budget of $51.3 million, 64 percent of it, or $32.94 million, will be spent on public safety for 103 people in police and 53 in fire.

In Lodi’s 2008 budget of $46.52 million, we spent about 53 percent of it, or $24.7 million, on police and fire with 120 people in police and 64 in fire.

So, while the amount has gone up and the percentage has gone up, the total number of people serving you in both departments has gone down.

Why? The pension payments are eating the money up.

We cannot let this continue!

If you support a costlier government that provides fewer services — vote yes and you will get exactly what you want — less and less for more and more of your money.

However, if you want fundamental changes to how your city council spends your money, I urge you to vote NO on Measure L. in Sacramento