It seems the City of Detroit and Wayne County are now insisting that employees secure copy of their federal tax filings to cross reference with their benefits packages. For some time these employees were listing anyone and everyone as qualified dependents for health care coverage, even extending to retirees as there was no administrative oversight in place. What this means is these local governments have been providing unnecessary health care coverage for individuals who were never eligible as dependents.
There is an interesting piece of information that was delivered to me for my analysis. It seems the City of Hamtramck is in the speculative process of changing the benefits of retired public safety members. Of course, the unions will bring forth litigation because it is an interference of union collective bargaining contracts and the City is prepared to loose in court. The City will appeal and loose, again. By that time the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) will have been fully implemented and cover any of the coverage the public safety retirees have lost, leaving the City in the clear to fill wholes in its budget.
In assessing this scenarios of a city benefiting in the short and long term from attacking collective bargaining, it seems to put into perspective the activities of many states of in dismantling collective bargaining powers of union contracts because in a few years, the federal government will pick up the unexpected burdens of legacy and health care costs.
Let's look at it this way. So far the manufacturing unions have been faced with accepting cuts in benefits and so have local and state government employees. The next in the chain of events seems to be the pensions and benefits of federal employees.
The pay and pensions of federal employees have just recently come up for examination. For example, the Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael Astrue has put on the table early out deals for some 9,000 employees. In light of the increase in disability claims and baby boomer applications for Social Security Benefits, it leaves the field office staff short handed. As one field officer and union stewart told me last month,
"The Administration wants us to do $10,000 worth of work for $100 pay. That is just not possible and alot of claims are going to be delayed. Children (SSI cases) who are aging out, turning 18, automatically come up for review. This means their determinations and payments will be delayed."
In the long run the Administration will be able to invest in streamlining its operations and save on legacy costs.
Congressional staffers can easily make more than a state governor or a mayor, making them uniquely prime to be political volunteer test subjects on how the nation will be moving forward in the rethinking of benefits and pensions.
The starting pay for a Detroit Police Officer is about $12.50 an hour and with a child or two, that officer now qualifies for Supplemental Food Benefits and subsidized daycare. An FBI agent starts at about $60,000 a year with the cre'me de la cre'me benefits package. So what makes a federal law enforcement officer so different from a municipal law enforcement officer? Quite simple, the pension and benefit cut epidemic has yet to fully infect federal discussions.
Simply put, federal employees benefits and pensions are next up on the chopping block.
No matter how loud the opposition soap boxes its ad hominem arguments on the evils of Obamacare, the Act is on its way to full 2015 implementation and will be the fodder for the epidemiology of pensions, with the help of those who want to get rid of collective bargaining.
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