Friday, October 15, 2010

MAST Pension Mess: I Let Them Have It, Finally


My comment on a post from Tony's Kansas City. I just cannot believe what a flippin mess this has turned into--and it was totally predictable.

This all just makes me wanna hollar. Honestly, did we see any freaking numbers before this happened? NO WE DID NOT--we got the fine-fine hand job--and it was just as unsatisfying. So here we are, about where I thought we'd be, and I keep thinking the four least satisfying words in the English language: I told you so.

It was all about power and money. Louie Wright does not care about the former MAST employees, or even the fire fighters. He sure as hell doesn't care about the community. Louie Wright is yet another greed head pol, looking out for number 1--that would be LW.

Eventually city worker pensions are going to have to be dealt with, and it will not be pretty. People are going to lose out on money they were promised. The problem here is that MAST employees were enticed (bribed?) with promises of full pension instead of a hybrid or straight contribution system. If the city says no to the $30 million dollar plan, they will be seeing Local 42 in court. They could lose big, depending on how a judge interprets the contract and "side letters."

Don't be distracted by what individual MAST employees did with their 401K money. A "Rock and Hard Place" situation was created by the City Council caving into the fire union and the desire for power without REALLY STUDYING the idea of taking MAST on as a city endeavor by merging it into the fire department.

Reelect no one from the clowncil. No one from the current City Council is mayoral material either.

The comment is attatched to this TKC post, which has fallen off the first page and probably will not get many more reads, but my comment is the 51 st and the rest of them clearly reflect the frustration of the people (admittedly TKC readers, but still...) with all the spending by government these days. It's getting ugly out there for everyone now.

3 comments:

Bob G. said...

T.O.:

Don't be at all suprised if the city decides to "cull the herd" of potential retirees by finding some lame excuse to REMOVE them...(then they get no pension).

Other cities have tried this, with varying effects.

Big business has done it too, but they choose the "early-out" scenario...lump-sum payoff for leaving the company and taking NO bennies with them...
Heckuva way to operate, but they dug their OWN hole.

They should have put the dang shovel DOWN at the first sign of a problem.

Maybe they'll catch on...some day.

Have a good weekend.

bill kostar said...

If you spend any time interacting with the elected officials in KCMO, what you very quickly find is that NONE OF THEM HAVE ANY REPONSIBILITY FOR THE RESULTS OF ANYTHING AND DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY REAL INTEREST IN HOW THINGS ACTUALLY TURN OUT.
Talk to the chair of the public safety committee about the fact that KCMO has fully 25% of the number of murders in New York, a city with a population over 20 times the size. Her answer is that the city is funding a program at the $300K level, even though she has absolutely no idea what the program's performance standards are, or if it's meeting them.
Who's actually responsible for the disastrous Water Department? I guess it's the two guys sleeping in their truck, because NO ONE at city hall demands any performance there either.
You can go on and on, but the MAST pension is just the latest in an endless series of brain-dead episodes where people who are given the responsibility for making multi-million dollar decisions apparently don't have the time to do the homework necessary to be serious and thorough in what they do.
Elections are coming soon, and not only will there be candidates for council and mayor, but some critical tax and revenure issues will be before the voters.
If these votes depend on the credibility, competence, and performance of the KCMO city government, would the last one to leave city hall, please turn off the lights.

The Observer said...

Bill:

In my lifetime, I had the privilege to serve as a Church Board member of churches I have attended.
During those tenures, I made decisions involving far less money, with far more information than was available concerning the MAST merger/takeover by the city.

Being a City Council member is these folks only job; I was a church board member as a volunteer. If I or another board member wanted more information on something, we did the research ourselves; we had no staff to help us.

There is NO EXCUSE for the colossal clusterfuck the MAST thing has turned into.

I have not heard much from any mayoral candidates, except I think Burke, who came out against it. We'll find out about Funk and Hermann, but I think we already know.

This week will be telling.

Thanks for commenting
T.O.

Bobby G.
Bang up job as usual. Thanks for coming by.

T.O.