Public Employees' Benefits

This is personal.

This week I read about a survey in which a majority of Californians believe that public employees in California should give up some of their retirement benefits to help balance the state budget.

I don't know about California. I don't know how their public employee benefits are structured or how generous (or not so) the retirement plan(s) for public employees is in California.

But, I know about Travis County, Texas.

I have been an employee of the Travis County Attorney's Office for over 29 years. For many years, I have been the Executive Assistant Travis County Attorney, one of the two lawyers who report directly to the County Attorney. I supervise the civil (as opposed to the criminal prosecution) side of our office. It is the equivalent of being a senior partner in a law firm of 75 or so lawyers.

During my career working for the Travis County Attorney, I have been well- and fairly-paid. I have no complaints about the salary I've received. But, it has been a small fraction of the salary I would have received in an equivalent position in private practice, even though, over the years, the lawyers we have faced, both in transactional negotiations and in litigation, have been the senior partners of major law firms, and we've done pretty well.

This fractional salary fact is and has been true for most, if not all Travis County employees. Virtually all of us make less than our private-industry counterparts and always have, even though we do the same work that they do.

Over those years, I have heard, over and over, from elected officials and from members of the public, that it was fair to pay us, the county employees, less than our private-industry counterparts because (1) we had more job security and (2) we got such generous benefit packages, including our retirement plan.

And there is some truth to that, though not as much as I suspect people think. Our benefit packages are not all that much more generous than many in private industry, and not as generous as some in private industry. Nonetheless, there is some truth to it.

In particular, this has been said during times of an expanding economy when private-industry salaries were rising fast and far out-pacing our salaries as county employees. "You don't get paid as much because you get such good benefits."

So, for many years, the public servants of Travis County have received less for our work than our private counterparts with the promise that it would even out when we retired.

Now you want to reduce our retirement?

I'm sorry. I worked for that retirement. It's been part of what I've been promised - by my fellow citizens - if I would continue to work on their behalf in public service. I've sacrificed countless nights and weekends for that retirement. I've watched my private-practice counterparts live in huge houses and drive expensive cars and take fancy vacations to ski resorts in Colorado and trips to Europe, none of which I could afford. And the reason given to me for why I should feel okay that I wasn't able to afford what they had - even though I was facing them in the courtroom and beating them - was always that I had better benefits than they did.

Now you want to reduce our retirement?

Shame on you! Keep your promises! We've kept ours! Pay us what you agreed to pay us when we were doing your work for you!

I told you this was personal.