EDITORIAL

Tempe pension gimmick sticks it to taxpayers

If you're against pension spiking -- ahem, "performance pay" -- you must hate firefighters, says a Tempe union president.

It is a lesson that Arizona cities insist on learning painfully and slowly: Artificially inflating the pensions of city employees is an unfair burden on the taxpayers footing the bill.

Earlier, it was Phoenix and Tucson spiking pensions. Now, it is Tempe’s turn. The Tempe gambit is no less of a squeeze on city finances. Nor is it any less a violation of state law.

Tempe allows its firefighters to redeem unused sick leave and vacation time in the latter years of their careers. Tempe then adds that amount to their base salaries, artificially boosting pension calculations.

RELATED: How can Phoenix stop pension spiking?

ENDORSEMENT: Pension-reform measure would end spiking

In the view of Tempe officials condoning the practice, the city avoids a state law that forbids spiking pensions with “payment for unused sick leave (and) payment in lieu of vacation” by calling it another name. The city’s contract with its firefighters describes the payments, instead, as “medical and vacation performance pay.”

Really? A rose by any other name would smell as foul.

This is the same practice used by well-paid executives in Phoenix to boost their pensions into the stratosphere. Cumulatively, it is having much the same impact on Tempe’s bottom line.

Ten years ago, Tempe’s contribution to its police and firefighter pension plans was less than $2 million. Today? The increase in what Tempe must pay to its public-safety pension plans this fiscal year is more than twice that amount. In all, Tempe is paying $18.3 million to cover the pensions of its public-safety employees and retirees.

Much of that amount is the result of a 2014 court ruling on cost-of-living increases. But even at these current, high levels of payments, Tempe still owes at least $220 million in unfunded pension benefits to current and future retirees. All of that cost falls on the shoulders of taxpayers.

The president of the Tempe Fire Fighters Union is using an especially obnoxious line of baloney to shut up critics of this subterfuge: Stop hating firefighters.

“The critics of performance pay are critics of firefighters and of rewarding hard-working, longtime employees of the city,” said union president Don Jongewaard.

Right. By that same logic, the presidents of firefighter unions are critics of hard-working taxpayers. Stop being such a hater, Mr. Jongewaard.

Tempe firefighters no doubt are hard-working and selfless. They deserve as good a salary and pension as Tempe taxpayers can afford.

They can’t afford artificial and illegally boosted pension payments. And Tempe should stop tricking them into doing so.