Sanders, Aguirre Offer Differing Pension Plans

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published March 4, 2008 at 1:08 PM PST

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

Mayor Jerry Sanders hopes to cut San Diego's escalating pension costs by introducing a different kind of pension plan for future city employees. City Attorney Mike Aguirre says the city would save mor

Mayor Jerry Sanders hopes to cut San Diego's escalating pension costs by introducing a different kind of pension plan for future city employees. City Attorney Mike Aguirre says the city would save more money by going back and correcting mistakes by the pension board that have cost taxpayers millions. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Sanders hopes the city's three labor unions will consider a two-tier pension system which would give city employees hired after 2009 a different kind of plan.

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Sanders: Put quite simply, our existing retirement system is simply not sustainable over the long term, and that's why I'm proposing a retirement system that limits the taxpayers' liability.

Sanders says a defined contribution plan for new employees could save the city $25 million a year in future decades.

City Attorney Mike Aguirre says he has a better plan. He is suing the pension board for underestimating the cost of so-called service credits -- a mistake that has cost the San Diego taxpayer $146 million.

Aguirre: If we get the support of the mayor and city council to simply, properly price the service credits, that will make more money than any proposal the mayor has made so far.

Aguirre's plan is still in the courts and Sanders' proposal is still at the negotiation stage with the city's three labor unions.

Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.