Have you noticed whenever there’s a disparity in pay or benefits between similar classes of government workers or beneficiaries, the proposed solution always involves taking more taxpayer money to increase the pay or benefits of one group?
But when there’s a difference between what similar groups of citizens are paying in taxes, then someone is enjoying a “loophole,” and the proposed solution again involves taking more taxpayer money by raising their taxes!
Either way, the taxpaying public always loses. What’s up with that?
Let’s step back a moment and ask a basic question: Why should we be increasing anyone’s benefits in city government, let alone people who don’t even work for city government but were merely related to employees – in a year when services are being cut and people are being laid off?
Why can’t we achieve equity by giving every survivor of a police officer or firefighter who dies on the job a generous 75% of the benefits that employee would have gotten?
Most jobs don’t offer family benefits like that. If you were to die on the job, would a member of your family collect three quarters of the annual allowance you would have gotten for retirement? Many of us don’t even get retirement benefits!
As noted in my previous argument, safety officers already receive very generous salaries. Is it asking too much for each of them to set a little of that money aside for life insurance policies?
Starchild
Candidate for School Board