19 replies to this topic

[RD Milhollin]

This doesn't sound right; Tax money used to support private for-profit events. 

 

http://www.star-tele...s-national.html

 

I suppose if cities can give money to Walmart, Cabellas, and Bass Pro, the state can give it to a billionaire stadium owner who used other tax money to build the place...

[Doohickie]

Yes, I was appalled when I read that.

[RD Milhollin]

Fort Worth to give 30 Million to Cassco and 12 million to Walmart?

 

http://www.star-tele...30-million.html

 

Millionaires and billionaires at the public teat...

[johnfwd]

State funding to bring a BCS championship game to AT&T Stadium in Arlington versus City of Fort Worth tax breaks for private development on a large scale in southwest Fort Worth.  Apples and Oranges.  But I support both if it yields economic fruit in return for both investments.

 

The Star-Telegram article cited above states that the state of Texas received some $247 million in direct spending on the recent Super Bowl extravaganza in North Texas.  Disagree or not, the legislators believe it's worth it to provide funding to bring in a national sports event they believe will benefit the state economically.   Yes, AT&T Stadium is a private venture.  But are you in favor of state funding only of public facilities?  If so, which public facility in Texas has the capacity to host a BCS championship game? 

 

As for City of Fort Worth granting tax breaks for private economic development...you may not like it but there's a lot of precedence for this.  In this case, I believe city support is a wise decision.  Judging from the artist's rendering and the project projections of the Clearfork development, we're not talking about one mom&pop store or even a Cabellas.  This is going to transform a vast area of southwest Fort Worth into a small urban community. And it's going to be economically BIG for our city.

[FWFD1247]

And yet they want to cut funding from us "greedy" public servants. It's all a giant farce they want to give more money through grants and tax abatements to Walmart and all other billion dollar corporations, all on the publics dollar and safety. For instance they wanted to "brownout" fire companies throughout the city in order to save a couple million dollars but what they didn't say is with those companies "browned out" not only could it put the publics safety on the line but lower our coverage of the city which would increase our response time ( when seconds and minutes count). It would also drop our ISO rating from 2 to 3 which would raise homeowners insurance and cost us far more than the money that the city was going to be "saving".
Rant over

[David Love]

Before the city of Fort Worth granted Tony Landrum 17 million in tax abatements there was not a SINGLE residence a person could purchase in downtown Fort Worth. Just 10 years later, was that a prudent investment? I know they’ve collected 6 figures in taxes from me alone.

 

…as for browning out fire departments, don’t really have a dog in that fight other than paying taxes. Seems like it’s more of a battle over retirement benefits but I’ve not really followed it much other than scratching my head wondering if someone can really retire from a city job making more per year than they averaged per year while on the job. If it’s paid for with public money then why not have the public vote on what they think is fair compensation and retirement benefits for their public servants?

[JBB]

 

Before the city of Fort Worth granted Tony Landrum 17 million in tax abatements there was not a SINGLE residence a person could purchase in downtown Fort Worth.

Not exactly accurate. Pecan Place Condos opened the year that the abatements were granted and there's another condo cluster whose name is escaping on Belknap/Forest Park near the Chesapeake building that I believe opened pre-2000. But I certainly get your point. The Tower added the first significant volume of non-rental units downtown.

[FWFD1247]

The brownouts in my opinion may have been more retaliation for the fire department not backing Betsy Price in her election.
As for the retirement it is similar to a 401k in that the city (employer) contributes a percentage of our pay into the retirement account and we contribute a percentage as well but it's a group fund that consistently gains interest as a whole. Aside from that the tax payer (myself included) doesn't contribute beyond the initial percentage and the retirement fund is self sufficient with the continual contributions. Firefighters on average spend 30+ years on the job in Fort Worth and it's rare that anybody leaves the job before retirement I know we are a bunch of guys and girls that love showing up to work everyday and look forward to helping in the community everyday whether it be fire, wrecks, sick or hurt people or the occasional cat in tree calls. With that being said the job is taxing on anybody whether it's being up all night running calls or being in a fire or working a wreck on the freeway or the standard EMS call and to compare our career to most public sector jobs is apples and oranges in my opinion. Remember we are always working and willing whether it's bright and sunny or iced all over the roads ( as we have seen lately) or there is flooding or tornadoes, day and night.

[David Love]

 

Before the city of Fort Worth granted Tony Landrum 17 million in tax abatements there was not a SINGLE residence a person could purchase in downtown Fort Worth.

Not exactly accurate. Pecan Place Condos opened the year that the abatements were granted and there's another condo cluster whose name is escaping on Belknap/Forest Park near the Chesapeake building that I believe opened pre-2000. But I certainly get your point. The Tower added the first significant volume of non-rental units downtown.

 

I remember discussing on the forum what was going to happen with the Tower right after the tornado, and that it took 2 plus years to get things going and a bit more to get everything finished, they had my cash for quite some time. I was kinda ticked about Pecan Place, but it never really registered as an option due to the 500K plus range. Don't remember anything on Belknap back then.

[David Love]

This is what has me scratching my head, it's said it was published in The Star Telegram but I can't find the link back to it but here's one of the places I've found it: http://thecomingdepr...-insolvent.html

 

Are these numbers real?

 

 

In January, a 53-year-old policeman retired with an annual benefit of $90,312 for life, plus $256,000 in a lump sum payment. Another policeman, 57, got almost $74,000 annually, plus $313,000 in a lump sum. A 54-year-old firefighter got an annual pension of $90,130, plus $178,000 in cash.

 

With an average age of 50 for the police and 54 for the firemen in this group, they're likely to spend more years in retirement than they worked. An analysis for the City Council, presented in July, projected that the retiring policemen would collect $3.1 million in pension pay.

[FWFD1247]

What the article fails to mention is the rank of those mentioned, a firefighter gets paid far less than the Fire Chief and rightfully so. I can't speak for the police or other city employees because I don't know how they run their department.
The numbers in the article seem a little off, I would say the average age at retirement for a firefighter is about 58 and that is with on average 32 years on the job. When the article said,"they're likely to spend more years in retirement than they worked." That seems to be a bit of a stretch when the average life expectancy of an American male (because we make up over 95% of the department) is 75, don't get me wrong I would love to live past 90 (58+32), but statistically that is highly unlikely.
Firefighters have shorter life expectancies than the average population and are three times more likely to die on the job, due to inherent risks, physical and mental stresses, and exposures to toxic and carcinogenic compounds released in smoke. (source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, University of Cincinatti.)
With all of that being said we get funeral notices almost every week for retired firefighters, and it wasn't too long ago that the average life expectancy after retirement was 3-4 years!!!

[David Love]

I've noticed most fellows that work in a tight knit group with a family away from home work environment die pretty quick after retirement. That held true in an avionics shop I worked in, 72 degrees, hepa filtered air and I actually looked forward to going to work to see what the gossip was. We worked around some nasty chemicals but we had respirators or breathing protection, but not as nice as fire fighters do. Yet very few lived 3 or more years past retirement, that's just part of being a guy and getting old.

 

I'm not sure how much the article went into it but what has me scratching my head, it's not what a firefighter makes year to year, it's calculating the retirement on the highest paid year or the highest 3 paid years, then retiring on 80% of that which could easily be higher than base pay. I've been in a union so I know for a fact that if someone is in their retirement calculation year they get first dibs on overtime, regardless of what the company policy is. So for ease of calculation, say base pay was 100k, they could easily make 60%+ more of that in OT. When they're cutting heads and stations, there is a LOT more chances for OT. That is what's breaking the city. ...and what's with that huge lump sum payout when you go on retirement, 200K+?, even in my union days that was unheard of, sweet deal.

 

Why not just average the total amount made over the entire career and base the retirement percentage on that value, just like everyone else?

[Not Sure]

Pensions are part of the reason people take jobs with low pay and crappy hours. They are a promise that is made upon hire. When the goalposts are moved or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow you've worked your entire career for can be taken away or put up to a vote by a group without any vested interest, it not only wrongs the employees who have given their working lives to the job, it also greatly reduces the number of current employees and future applicants willing to put up with the low pay and crappy hours. 

 

If a pension was part of the deal at the time a city employee agreed to take the job and put in enough years to become vested, it should never be on the table to be taken away or reduced. The employee can't go out and work another 30 years somewhere else, and the low pay may have prevented creating an alternate savings for retirement. The employee lived up to their end of the bargain, so the employer should do the same.

[David Love]

Pensions are part of the reason people take jobs with low pay and crappy hours. They are a promise that is made upon hire. When the goalposts are moved or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow you've worked your entire career for can be taken away or put up to a vote by a group without any vested interest, it not only wrongs the employees who have given their working lives to the job, it also greatly reduces the number of current employees and future applicants willing to put up with the low pay and crappy hours. 

 

If a pension was part of the deal at the time a city employee agreed to take the job and put in enough years to become vested, it should never be on the table to be taken away or reduced. The employee can't go out and work another 30 years somewhere else, and the low pay may have prevented creating an alternate savings for retirement. The employee lived up to their end of the bargain, so the employer should do the same.

 

I think the pensions have evolved over the years through contract negotiations between unions and the city of Fort Worth. The jobs and pensions I'm talking about are not crappy jobs and they have descent pay to start with and when you factor in the fact that they're not paying into a 401K ALL their pay goes into their pocket, pension and retirement is pure gravy.

 

People shouldn't retire making more than their salary simply because they found a way to game the system, while taxpayers foot the bill. Getting one of those jobs shouldn't be like winning the lottery, they have a hire to application rate to rival ivy league colleges, an example would be this years testing / applications for Fort Worth:

...lines out the door of a gymnasium.

...these are not low paying jobs.

[renamerusk]

Before the city of Fort Worth granted Tony Landrum 17 million in tax abatements there was not a SINGLE residence a person could purchase in downtown Fort Worth. Just 10 years later, was that a prudent investment? I know they’ve collected 6 figures in taxes from me alone.

 

 I agree with you; it has been a catalyst and a prudent investment.

 

But elsewhere, such as in Dallas, the city is offering $50m+ in incentives for a residential and retail project for this empty downtown skyscraper; and this would at least seem to be questionable especially in light of the residential apartment boom near and surrounding downtown Dallas. Agree?

 

http://www.dallasarc...fo/elmplace.htm

[David Love]

It is much cheaper to retrofit an existing structure but it's a lot like buying a foreclosure at auction, you're not always sure what you're getting.

 

If there's no one in there, they're getting zip ...and technically, it's not really costing them anything out of pocket, most of what is given up in future taxes is recouped by what they bring into the area.

[FWFD1247]

...We worked around some nasty chemicals but we had respirators or breathing protection, but not as nice as fire fighters do...

You are correct the self contained breathing apparatus that we use in fires are rather nice. Still that is apples and oranges you are in a controlled environment with a respirator that OSHA finds adequate for the chemicals you were around. In fires we NEED the SCBA if the smoke doesn't kill you the super heated gases will kill you! 

Also I wish the breathing protection was the only thing we have to worry about in fires. The carcinogens can also be absorbed through your skin which bunker gear cannot protect you from. There are studies that have been done from Harvard that firemen are 300x more likely to die of a heart attack than any other profession. A study conducted at St. Joseph's Hospital in Atlanta states that firemen are known to have a 300% increased risk for cardiac disease. No matter which website you look at firefighters are in the top 3 of most stressful jobs.That is just some of the physical hazards from fires. The psychological hazards like seeing trauma, burn victims, death, and especially when they involve children. 

We also have to keep up with all the training that is always changing seeing that we respond to fires ( Structure, Grass, Car, & Aircraft), wrecks, ems calls, HAZMAT, WMD, swift water rescue, underwater recovery, high angle and low angle ropes rescue, heavy machinery rescue, trench rescue, confined space rescue, Bomb squad & I am sure there are more emergencies we respond to and have to be fully trained for but those are the specialties that I can think of off the top of my head. 

 

 

I'm not sure how much the article went into it but what has me scratching my head, it's not what a firefighter makes year to year, it's calculating the retirement on the highest paid year or the highest 3 paid years, then retiring on 80% of that which could easily be higher than base pay. I've been in a union so I know for a fact that if someone is in their retirement calculation year they get first dibs on overtime, regardless of what the company policy is. So for ease of calculation, say base pay was 100k, they could easily make 60%+ more of that in OT. When they're cutting heads and stations, there is a LOT more chances for OT. That is what's breaking the city. ...and what's with that huge lump sum payout when you go on retirement, 200K+?, even in my union days that was unheard of, sweet deal.

 

 

I can't speak for the police and civilian side of the city because I don't know their benefits. As for the firefighters, we have a program that is far more fair in regards to the OT, it is based on your last OT day worked and we have an OT cap that changes every pay period and if you are in the top percentile than you are not allowed to sign up until you are below the cap which makes the 60%+ unobtainable. As for the cutting of personnel, there is nobody to blame but the city council that didn't hire the class last year, that would have made up for the attrition rate and short staffing, and wouldn't have cost the city as much in OT even though the fire dept. explained to them the deadline of the tests and issues it would cause in the form of OT, but yet they act dumbfounded that we couldn't just hire them after the test expired. Now they are playing catch up and trying to make up for there mistakes and hiring 110 people off this last test.

 

The lump sum is from a drop account.

 

 

I think the pensions have evolved over the years through contract negotiations between unions and the city of Fort Worth. The jobs and pensions I'm talking about are not crappy jobs and they have descent pay to start with and when you factor in the fact that they're not paying into a 401K ALL their pay goes into their pocket, pension and retirement is pure gravy.

 

People shouldn't retire making more than their salary simply because they found a way to game the system, while taxpayers foot the bill. Getting one of those jobs shouldn't be like winning the lottery, they have a hire to application rate to rival ivy league colleges, an example would be this years testing / applications for Fort Worth:

...lines out the door of a gymnasium.

...these are not low paying jobs.

 

 

Yes, it is a competitive process for us and for many reasons. We have a great department as a whole, we are well trained, we have great equipment, we are very aggressive ( which is why you don't see many huge fires on the news in Fort Worth, and fires aren't as uncommon as you may think), the larger the cities the more promotion opportunities you get, and as for our pay, they look at firefighter salaries across the region and compare us to comparable cities in size and we are in the middle. All of those reasons are why people come from all over the US to come and work for Fort Worth Fire Department. This upcoming class is comprised of active firefighters from out-of-state as well as in-state from Dallas, Arlington, Keller, Southlake, etc. Many are taking pay cuts just to come work for our department for all of those reasons. Some even had rank and 10+ years experience elsewhere.  

 

As for the pension there has been the taxpayers haven't had to "foot the bill" ever in the city of Fort Worth, we have one of the strongest economies in nation, which is why the recession hasn't hurt us as much as it has other cities in the nation.

 

Although this is an article from 2011, one thing to keep in mind is that our economy is better than it was in 2011, in the 15 months of "negotiations" we brought forth multiple offers from our side which were reasonable, that the city shot down and at the beginning of the year they give us an unreasonable offer and give us a take it or leave it ultimatum and declined to have an arbitrator mediate our negotiations. What is why we voted unanimously to sue the city only costing us (the taxpayers) more money to pay for lawyer fees. I don't know about you but I do not consider that a fair "negotiation"

 

Lastly, everyone wants to relate our "impending Doom" to that of the great city of Detroit. In this article from last year, they look into all the reasons for the fall of the city and only one small excerpt makes reference to the pensions, my only point is those "Money sucking public servants" seem to still be there and helping the local community and the city expects them to still work efficiently even though they make more fires and shootings than any other city in America ( New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston all included) all with far less and worst resources. I encourage anyone to watch the documentary "Burn" ( I believe they still have it on Netflix) it not only puts a name and face to those that are still serving the city today, but also what we in the fire department experience day in and day out. I guess the corruption in the Detroit's government was minuscule compared to the hard working police and firefighters that serve the city today. 

[FWFD1247]

Before the city of Fort Worth granted Tony Landrum 17 million in tax abatements there was not a SINGLE residence a person could purchase in downtown Fort Worth. Just 10 years later, was that a prudent investment? I know they’ve collected 6 figures in taxes from me alone.

 

By the way I am not anti Tax abatements I do understand the concept of spending money to make money. My only issue was the corporation in which they give abatements to (Walmart) which was recorded to bring 80-100 jobs (I would assume to be fork lift drivers and working class jobs ) as opposed to trying to score some skilled labor jobs (technology). I think we can all agree that any investment in our cities CBD and Infrastructure is a win for all of us, and I think that is what we all want to see done. 

[David Love]

I think city workers have a bit of a cushion when the economy takes a downturn due to property values and taxes collected based on those values lags a couple years behind. Sales tax hits are more immediate, but business closings take longer, some longer than others. Net result is when the pain does start; it's intense and lasts much longer than many are prepared to endure. City employees tend to be last in the cycle, but as budgets go, taking care of employees is always one of the largest expenditures and looking at some of Fort Worth's I was surprised that some were so low compared other states: ...you have to go to the bottom of the page where you'll find "Local government employment and payroll (March 2007)"  Go all the way to the bottom and take a look at the info graphic, Employee Retirement takes up a LOT of space compared to all other expenditures.

 

The property bubble burst hit cities much harder than other economic downturns, DFW was so much better off to begin with compared to most due to a smaller run up in property values. What many don't realize is the city of Fort Worth and its suburbs have had to do some belt tightening, so just like it took a few years for the real pain to hit city workers, it's going to be a few more boom years to get back to anywhere near where we were. It could take as long as a decade for multiple reasons. 

 

Having some intelligent people running the city is going mean they're going to be looking at every single line item to ensure every cost is brought in line to reflect reality.

[David Love]

I don't see enticing a Wall-Mart into any community is good for taxes "unless" it's an area that's totally blighted, "Berry area - good idea maybe, Beach street - not so much," they tend to drain business and jobs away from nearby businesses and take the profits and long term business out of that area. They're a mega corporation so they're very adept at maximizing profits and taking advantage of every local loophole, often at the cost of the local businesses those loopholes were intended for.