Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Part Time Leave of Absence?
Mitt Romney expects us to believe that during his three year part-time leave of absence he provided NO executive input to a firm, Bain Capital, of which he was sole shareholder, CEO and Chairman of the Board, from which he drew an annual salary in excess of $100,000, and in which he had a financial stake of perhaps $100 million.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Travel Photos from Colombia
Thursday, September 29, 2011
More Travel Photos
Select item #2 at under "Favorite Links" at right to access all my online photos at Picasa.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
New Travel Photos from July 2011
Select item #2 at under "Favorite Links" at right to access all my online photos at Picasa.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Anti-Public Employee Propaganda
Friday, May 13, 2011
"Bad Mood"
The May 7 Dispatch editorial "Bad Mood," concerning the results of a Reason Foundation-Rupe poll regarding concerns of Americans did indicate, as the editorial noted, that "Americans have not lost their common sense, but seem to have lost patience with politics as usual."
The article piqued my interest in the poll, so I decided to check the Foundation's website for more detailed information on the poll. And there I discovered one poll result which, not surprisingly, was omitted from the Dispatch editorial: "Half of all respondents say that public sector workers receive better benefits that (sic) those with similar jobs in the private sector, but only 37 percent support cutting those public employee benefits to help balance state budgets."
Perhaps the respondents realize something that the Dispatch editors refuse to admit: that while public employees generally receive better benefits than their private sector peers, these higher benefits are usually offset by lower pay rates, a fact that has been substantiated in numerous studies comparing total compensation of public and private sector workers.
Don't balk?
Once again the Dispatch, in a May 1 editorial, calls for Ohio’s public employees to “take part in the sacrifices required to set the state’s finances right,” claiming that “Ohioans in private-sector jobs are already sacrificing, and will sacrifice more…”
Haven’t state employees already sacrificed by being hit with ten unpaid furlough days per year? Don’t the proposed pension revisions which reduce the benefits that have been promised, and in some cases require contribution increases, entail sacrifices? Haven’t thousands of public employees been laid off? Aren’t many more likely to lose their jobs as funds for local government operations are slashed? Don’t public employees and their families also suffer at least as much as private sector employees when “government services across the spectrum…bear cuts to help balance the budget?”
The Dispatch frequently mentions the “excessive pay and benefits” of public employees and the sacrifices of private-sector employees without ever providing specifics. I realize that many folks in the private sector have lost their jobs – but so have many public employees. Would it be too much to ask that the Dispatch provide some evidence that pay and benefits in the private sector have really been affected more adversely than those in the public sector, or that public employees pay and benefits are really “excessive?” Have pay rates at Nationwide Insurance or Chase Bank been frozen for years? Are Limited Brands employees paying a higher share of their health insurance premiums? Have Dispatch Broadcasting Group employees been forced to take unpaid furlough days? In short, exactly how have private-sector employees sacrificed more than public employees?
Monday, March 21, 2011
New Photos: Route of the Maya (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize)
Select item #2 at under "Favorite Links" at right to access all my online photos at Picasa.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Keeping Retirees in Ohio
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Kasich's staff salaries
Friday, November 12, 2010
The Big Con
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Letter to the Editor
Editor:
I applaud state's retirement systems' managements for refusing to provide the group of eight newspapers with "records of salaries, benefits, ages, years of service and contributions to the systems for each of the 400,000 people receiving benefits." (Dispatch editorial August 11)
While the Dispatch asserts in the editorial that "Statistical detail on salaries, payouts, age of retirement and the like isn't personal when no names are attached," in many cases it would be quite easy to determine an individual retiree's name from that information and public information available from employers. To cite an obvious example, consider former Columbus Police Chief James Jackson, who retired March 16, 2009 with 51 years of service. Armed with this information, how difficult would it be to determine "personal" information on Chief Jackson's retirement benefit?
Other items requested by the newspapers include each benefit recipient's age and last place of employment. Since in many smaller entities only one or two employees retire each year, identifying such individuals would also be quite simple.
Have there been "abrupt changes in pay that could signal manipulations of pay that could signal manipulations to boost benefits?" Of course there have been! But such changes could also signal a promotion to a higher-paying position. And there's no way the Dispatch could investigate further without determining the individual's identity! In any case it's the employer who increased the employee's pay, not the retirement system. And the retirement systems have already proposed changes to how final average salary is calculated to address "spiking."
The news media and the public are right to be concerned about the operations of Ohio's retirement systems. However, I suspect the detailed information requested appears more likely to be used for still more sensationalized articles concerning individuals receiving "exorbitant" pension benefits rather than an honest evaluation of the systems.
Tom Severns
Westerville
Addendum: Surprise - the Dispatch published the letter on Aug. 16.