City Attorney Jan Goldsmith lays out $700 million retiree health agreement with labor unions
City Attorney Jan Goldsmith lauded the agreement the City reached today with labor unions to drastically reduce retiree health costs — a move that will save San Diego taxpayers more than $700 million.
“This settlement … achieves an excellent result for the City,” Goldsmith said today at a joint news conference with Mayor Jerry Sanders, Council President Tony Young, Council President Pro Tem Kevin Faulconer and others.
Faulconer praised Goldsmith and Sanders for brokering this historic deal.
“This would not have been possible without Jan’s hard work and his recent court victory, which provided us with the leverage we needed to reach this agreement,” Faulconer said referring to a judge’s ruling that says retiree health benefits are not vested.
“The City Attorney was personally involved and invested in this, which is one of the main reasons why we’re here unveiling this positive solution to a problem that has dogged our City for years.”
Goldsmith said he’s not in the business of winning lawsuits “to put them as trophies on a shelf.”
“We can either continue litigating this issue for years through the appellate courts, or we can resolve retiree health by coming together on a reasonable plan that will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars,” Goldsmith said.
Faulconer and his City Council colleagues spent numerous hours analyzing the agreement and the negotiations that led to it.
“My support came down to a simple choice: Do I choose the path of more costly litigation, years of appeals and more uncertainty for taxpayers? Or do I choose the path that leads to $713 million in cash flow savings through 2036 and immediately reduces the City’s $1.1 billion unfunded liability for retiree healthcare by $323 million?
“I say we need guaranteed savings – savings we can invest in our neighborhoods – and that’s what this agreement provides.”
Sanders said “this is easily the largest cost-savings measure ever implemented by the City.”
“This is money that can be used for public services, such as police, fire, parks and libraries,” the Mayor said.
Despite guaranteed savings, Faulconer warned that some would rather see more costly litigation “with uncertain outcomes and more risk to taxpayers.”
“As significant as this agreement is, it won’t be good enough for everyone. Some will criticize with inflammatory rhetoric,” Faulconer said. “I’m not interested in rhetoric. I’m interested in results.”
Comments 1
I posted below on DeMaio post as well. I’m trying to better understand whether this make sense.
Owen – Based on his press assistant’s subsequent post, its obvious that Faulconer went along with the Democrats on the Council.
They talk about savings, I want to talk about costs. Are the costs in real dollars going to go up during the course of the 15 year deal?
Details please.