Daigle, Mansoor questioned on pensions
Many candidates across the country tout public employee pension reform as one of the keys to fixing state and local government finances.
That includes two contenders for the 74th Assembly District who are advocating from an unusual perspective: Both could soon begin receiving their own government pensions.
Newport Beach City Councilwoman Leslie Daigle and state Assemblyman Allan Mansoor (R-Costa Mesa) will both be eligible to draw on their retirement funds within the next few years.
Mansoor plans to take a pension from his time as an Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputy, and Daigle has a fund set aside from her service on the council, and possibly more from her previous tenure as a Newport Beach city planner.
Daigle has challenged Mansoor for planning to take retirement benefits while pushing for changes.
“I think reforms begin at home,” Daigle said at a recent candidates debate, “and the fact is that in a couple years, Allan Mansoor is going to collect a big fat pension … Everything that he’s talking about, he’s going to collect at age 50.”
Mansoor has called for eliminating practices that inflate employee pensions, and has criticized unions’ negotiating tactics.
His sheriff’s plan guarantees an employee with Mansoor’s rank and tenure to collect 45% of the highest salary, as averaged over three years, according to Robert Kinsler, spokesman for the Orange County Employees Retirement System.
Mansoor said his highest annual salary never exceeded $100,000.
Newport’s council members are paid much less and have less generous pension plans. Each member receives about $15,000 per year in salary, while the mayor receives $21,000.
In her council retirement, Daigle could be eligible to begin collecting at 55 — in about five years — unless she chooses to cash out when she leaves the council.
All Newport council members receive the retirement benefits paid to other general employees in the city. If Daigle serves eight years on the council, she could be eligible for 20% of her highest salary.
Her term expires in 2014, but she would leave sooner if elected to the state Assembly in November.
If she cashes out, she would only be able to withdraw funds deducted from her City Council paycheck, plus any interest earned, and not additional taxpayer funds, which pay for most of public employees’ retirements.
The third candidate in the race, community activist and businessman Bob Rush, has also called for pension reform, and said that Daigle is being hypocritical because she also is enrolled in a pension fund.
“I think that Daigle should give the money back,” he said in an interview.
Daigle has advocated for employees paying more toward their retirement funds and has also criticized union negotiating. She said the practice of comparing pay and benefits to other governments causes compensation to spiral out of control.
It is unclear what retirement benefits Daigle will receive, if any, from when she was employed with the city. Officials say they cannot release information about her retirement fund until she actually begins taking payments. Daigle did not respond to multiple voicemail or email messages requesting details.
She worked as a city planner from May 1990 to April 1994, and left during a time of budget cuts and downsizing in the city government.
Mansoor worked as a sheriff’s deputy for 15 years and accumulated retirement benefits that he can begin collecting in about two years, when he turns 50.
Mansoor doesn’t qualify for retirement benefits from his eight years on the Costa Mesa City Council, his campaign spokesman said, and state Assembly members do not receive retirement benefits.
“There are a lot of good public employees, but the collective bargaining process is giving us the pension problems we have,” Mansoor said at a recent forum.
Had he stayed with the Sheriff’s Department for 30 years, Mansoor could have receive 90% of his pay in retirement.
Mansoor could have cashed out when he left the department. In that case he would have only received what he paid in and not what the county paid, or any interest.
Such benefits promised to police, firefighters and others have been blamed for local governments’ large pension debt, and the issue has become a rallying cry for Republicans on the campaign trail.
“The public is just outraged by that,” Daigle said at a recent Corona del Mar Chamber of Commerce meeting, when pointing out that Mansoor is enrolled in such a plan.
She was appointed to the City Council in 2004, and at some point chose to be in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, according to the city’s Human Relations Director Terri Cassidy.
Mansoor was automatically enrolled in his county retirement plan when he was a deputy and could not opt out.
Twitter: @mreicher