Facing new pressures on its pension system, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) says it can no longer cover much of the retirement cost for the employees it has hired away from other city agencies.
About 1,600 workers have transferred to the DWP from other city departments over the last six years, finding higher pay while avoiding furloughs and layoffs elsewhere. (A dumping ground for L.A. City dead weight it can not longer afford, not that it ever really could.)
Those new arrivals have created a $183-million pension burden for the utility, according to DWP officials. To deal with those costs, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's appointees on the DWP board voted last month to suspend, at least temporarily, full pension coverage for any new employee hired by the utility from another city department. (After the mayor handed out raises and increased benefits that he KNEW the city could NO WAY afford -- when he was running for re-election. [Only to quickly announce we couldn't afford it after he was RE-elected.])
That decision infuriated some members of the City Council, which voted unanimously Wednesday to veto it. (CITY COUNCIL...this was YOUR chance to show the voters some "good faith" that you want to clean up the mayor's mess and put the city on track...BUT WE SEE YOU ARE STILL NOT READY TO GIVE UP OLD TRICKS AND BAD HABITS!)
Over the last two years, the council has demanded that the DWP, which is separate from the city budget, hire workers from agencies facing major cuts. (They mean, let them sweep CITY HALL's MESS under DWP's rug.)
Councilman Richard Alarcon called the DWP's move...(WHO CARES WHAT THAT INDICTED JOKER HAS TO SAY. IF I WANNA KNOW WHAT ALARCON HAS TO SAY...I'LL GO VISIT HIM IN PRISON AND ASK HIM!)
READ MORE of the befuddled mess by a group of emotionally weak, greedy and scared incompetents in David Z's LA Times report.
MORE L.A. City News for Thursday, October 14, 2010:
LACityNews.com
