San Jose's $100,000 pension club: Analysis shows startling jump in six-figure pensions for retired cops, firefighters & bureaucrats

By John Woolfolk
San Jose Mercury News
Dec. 12, 2011

With San Jose leaders locked in a heated debate over how to curb retirement costs, an analysis by this newspaper shows a startling jump in six-figure pensions for retired cops, firefighters and top City Hall bureaucrats.

Nearly 1 in 3 retired San Jose police officers and firefighters now receive annual pensions of $100,000 or more -- up from 1 in 5 just two years ago, according to newly released records.

An increasing number of city workers are calling it quits to take advantage of a sweet retirement deal -- a guaranteed pension and automatic 3 percent annual cost-of-living raises that exceed the inflation rate -- while the city slashes everything from library hours to police jobs to cover the ballooning retirement benefits.

And in what critics of public pensions call a perverse phenomenon, some former city employees who retired a few years ago are now paid more than they were on the job, while remaining workers have taken 10 percent salary cuts to help pay the pension tab.

The number of retired city workers in the $100,000 club who weren't cops or firefighters almost doubled in two years, the new records show. Overall, 1 in 8 of San Jose's 4,653 retired city employees now receives an annual pension of $100,000 or more, up from 1 in 14 two years ago.