San Jose's $100,000 pension club is rapidly growing

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Source: San Jose Mercury News

With San Jose leaders locked in a heated debate over how to curb retirement costs, an analysis by this newspaper shows a startling jump in six-figure pensions for retired cops, firefighters and top City Hall bureaucrats.

Nearly 1 in 3 retired San Jose police officers and firefighters now receive annual pensions of $100,000 or more -- up from 1 in 5 just two years ago, according to newly released records.

An increasing number of city workers are calling it quits to take advantage of a sweet retirement deal -- a guaranteed pension and automatic 3 percent annual cost-of-living raises that exceed the inflation rate -- while the city slashes everything from library hours to police jobs to cover the ballooning retirement benefits.

And in what critics of public pensions call a perverse phenomenon, some former city employees who retired a few years ago are now paid more than they were on the job, while remaining workers have taken 10 percent salary cuts to help pay the pension tab.

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