Moorlach supports raising retirement age

Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach is known as the guy who predicted Orange County’s disastrous 1994 bankruptcy and more recently warned of an impending crisis due to employee pension costs.

Now he’s put his fiscal concerns in writing, backing a proposed ballot measure that would raise the age to obtain full retirement and cap pension benefits for all new government employees statewide. Moorlach is one of three initial signers of the measure, which was filed Thursday.

“The issue right now is that we are giving lifetime benefits at a very early age, at a very high percent,” Moorlach said. “If you were to start with the county as a deputy sheriff, let’s say, at the age of 20, at 53 you could retire with 100% of your salary.”

Cities are struggling with the same issues. In March, Newport Beach officials voted to give the lifeguard management association the benefit of “3% at 50” — meaning you can retire at age 50 and collect 3% of your final salary for each year you worked for the city.

City leaders had misgivings, but lifeguards argued that Newport’s other public safety workers — police and fire employees — already get the benefit, as do most lifeguard agencies in Southern California.

Offering bigger benefits and earlier retirement, at least for public safety workers, has been a statewide trend, in part because the state legislature determines what benefit programs cities can join, Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau said.

“When some cities give 3% at 50, then that becomes very attractive to police officers and they’re willing to jump ship,” he said. “It puts other cities in a very difficult position — it’s almost like you have to match it whether you want to or not.”

The ballot measure aims to alleviate that upward pressure. Here’s how:

Proponents must gather about 700,000 signatures from California voters to qualify for the ballot.

They could face opposition from public employee unions.

Nick Berardino, general manager of the Orange County Employees Assn., said he’s still evaluating the measure, but he thinks it could undermine the work of a bipartisan commission appointed by Gov. Schwarzenegger to review pension issues.

“We believe that it’s an overreaction, and it’s premature,” Berardino said of the ballot measure.