Orange County's public employee unions were dusting off the dirt Wednesday, a day after a countywide election that pitted firefighters against other government workers. Already, a grudging rendition of "Kumbaya" was in the works.
Union activists said they foresee growing harmony among state and local employees in the next few months as politicians begin to debate whether it's time to reform public pension systems on the state and county levels.
Nick Berardino, general manager of the Orange County Employees Assn., is optimistic about public employees working together. "I think it's going to take some time to get over what just happened, but hopefully everyone will take a deep breath and then see if we can't work together again."
The pension reform agenda is being pressed from Sacramento to Santa Ana. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has pledged to revive a proposal to create a two-tiered pension system for state employees, with current workers receiving set retirement pay and new workers shifted to an investment-based system.
Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector John M.W. Moorlach, who will be running for a supervisor's seat next year, has called for the county to adopt the same type of pension system. The county is facing a $2.3-billion deficit toward covering pension costs for current employees, according to estimates by the Orange County Employees Retirement System.
Berardino said county supervisors should have no quarrel with the pension benefits they approved in recent years, but conceded that it already is being made an issue by Moorlach. "We definitely expect an attack from the governor, but there's absolutely no reason why this board should attack our pension," Berardino said.
The remarks followed Tuesday's election, in which the big fight was about money.
Orange County voters soundly defeated Measure D, a local initiative backed by firefighters that would have given them a slice of state sales tax money that now goes to the Sheriff's Department and the district attorney's office. The measure was labeled a tax grab by the county employee and deputy sheriff's unions, which spent $1 million to defeat it. County supervisors placed three alternatives to the tax measure on the ballot, then argued against voting for any of them. All were bounced by voters by overwhelming margins.
