California Governor Jerry Brown speaks to reporters as he announces his proposed budget at the California State Capitol on January 10, 2011, in Sacramento, California. Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
By Michael B. Marois and James Nash
May 19, 2011 9:01 PM PT
Robb Quincey made $460,000 last year as city manager of Upland, California, a middle-class suburb east of Los Angeles at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. His duties included overseeing 325 employees, a police department with 25 cars, four fire stations and a library for the community of 76,000.
Last year, Quincey, 51, negotiated a new contract in which the city agreed to add reimbursements for his car, housing and other costs directly into his paycheck, according to public records. When he retired, the combined payments would be counted in his final year’s salary and used as the basis for calculating his pension for life.
Such loopholes allow some public employees to manipulate overtime, unused vacation and special compensation to boost their retirement pay. The practice, known as pension spiking, has drawn protests at a time when U.S. state pension assets are $479.5 billion under what is needed to pay promised benefits, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“It’s upsetting and confirms that we need change in local government,” said Gino Filippi, who was elected to the Upland City Council in November, after Quincey’s new contract was struck. “It’s an abuse of the system.”
The city manager was fired May 4 after using municipal funds to settle a claim filed by a city police officer who said he was passed up for a promotion as retaliation for investigating a domestic dispute involving Quincey, according to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Quincey declined to comment about the contract, said his lawyer, Michael Zweiback, a partner with Nixon Peabody LLP in Los Angeles.
In San Diego, a city 17 times bigger than Upland, the chief operating officer made $269,740 in 2009, according to the state controller’s office. In Merced, a city in the Central Valley farming region with about the same population as Upland, the city manager earned $182,000 that year.
Drawing Scrutiny
Spiking is not the only pension-related abuse drawing scrutiny. Lawmakers from Washington state to New Jersey are taking steps to curb so-called double dipping, where government retirees go back to work on the public payroll while still collecting a pension, such as a New York school superintendent who earned $225,000 and also collected a $316,245 pension.
Lawmakers in California, under pressure in the wake of a scandal in the small city of Bell, where the city manager gave himself almost $1.2 million in 2009, are working on legislation to clamp down on spiking and curtail public pension costs.
Backing From Brown
Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat who won office with the help of public employee unions, has said he supports efforts to curb pension spiking by requiring all newly hired state and local government workers to base their pensions on an average of their base pay for the final three years and prohibit unused vacation or sick leave in that calculation.
Assemblyman Warren Furutani, a Long Beach Democrat, has sponsored an anti-spiking bill now working its way through the legislature.
“We’ve had some real bad apples that have manipulated the system for their benefit,” Furutani said. “And we are moving to correct it.”
California until recently based pensions for state workers on a single year of salary, a practice that made it easier to spike retirement payments by inflating salaries for a short time. That increased to three years’ of salary beginning with labor contracts in 2007, said Lynelle Jolley, a spokeswoman for the Personnel Administration Department. The Legislature wrote the three-year provision into state law in January.
Just how often pension spiking occurs in California is unknown because there are more than 20 independent public pension funds. The Pacific Research Institute estimated in 2007 that spiking cost California pension systems $100 million a year. The San Francisco-based institute hasn’t produced a more recent estimate.
Spiking ‘Institutionalized’
A San Francisco civil grand jury in 2009 concluded that pension spiking “may be institutionalized and ongoing” in the city’s police and fire departments. About 25 percent of those who retired in the preceding 10 years received a salary increase of 10 percent or more in their last year, costing the city at least $132 million, according to the grand jury.
“It’s a fairly widespread practice to greater and lesser degrees,” said state Senator Joe Simitian, a Palo Alto Democrat. “Sometimes it’s pretty modest, other times it’s pretty aggressive.”
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest public pension in the U.S. at $236 billion, has rules intended to limit spiking.
Bonuses that pad a salary during the last year of employment, for example, must be offered to all employees in the same class. And the pension doesn’t allow accrued vacation that is cashed out at retirement to be counted toward pension calculations.
‘Very Clear Guidelines’
“We have some very clear guidelines about what is reportable compensation and what is not,” said Calpers spokesman Ed Fong.
Yet with more than 2,000 public agencies participating in the pension system, Fong said, legal pension padding is often written into contracts at the local level.
The California State Teachers Retirement System bases pensions on three years of salary for retirees with less than 25 years’ service and the top single year of salary for those with 25 years or more.
The Calstrs Benefits and Services Committee heard proposals for limiting spiking April 7. Officials with the second-largest pension system are proposing a unit to review cases where salaries jumped unexpectedly, as well as a whistle-blower hotline for people to report suspected abuses.
Employer Cooperation
“None of these are going to be foolproof internally to Calstrs without the cooperation of our employers,” Peggy Plett, deputy chief executive officer for benefits and services, told the committee. “Key to that is that our employers set salary.”
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So now the Q is up to the State level! Check into the rest of the executive staff of Upland. Police Chief – $360,000 Fire Chief – $260,000. And then take a look at midmanagement for the fire department. Two Battalion Chiefs over $200,000. One of them the Chief’s best friend! 3 Captains in the police department over $200,000. One Captain’s position made so Q could hide his problems. And the Police Chief didn’t realize any of this?
I’ve been reading the Daily Bulletin opinions section. I agree, Chief Adams is a great guy, but he knew better! The police chief will be held accountable for his lack of fortitude, because of the Q’s misdealings. But the big question, the police chief is being investigated for his indiscretions, why not the fire chief? Or the finance director? $50,000 spent to cover-up, but the finance director knew nothing about it? Need to find out the truth!
Unbelievable! How many more of them have padded their pensions?
I especially liked the following quote from the article: “His duties included overseeing 325 employees, a police department with 25 cars, four fire stations and a library for the community of 76,000.”
Podunk. 4 fire stations with it’s own helicopter operations, a $7 million fire station, a $1.5 million tiller truck, a $500,000 “Command Vehicle”, a $2 million renovated old fire station, and don’t forget Upland is getting it’s very own fire museum! Upland sounds like Los Angeles? or New York? Not the “middle class, subarb” as described in the article!
Quincey made more than the President’s $400k salary, but I am sure that running the city of Upland is far more complicated than running the USA. In addition to the insane salary he received, in less than 6 years, Quincey earned 14 years worth of pension. Who was sleeping when that was approved? We’re on the hook for $127k a year, if he retires at 55. We have 4 years to start saving.
Do a google search for any of these positions’ comparable salarys and you’ll see we are paying at least double what we should be. And no, you can’t compare us to similar cities, as this problem is rampant in CA.
Adams makes $360k? That’s almost as much as the Police Chief of the city of LA, that has something like 20,000 officers. And with that kind of salary you would think he would NOT make foolish decisions like promote Moore to Captain, since the position was already filled by a “more qualified” candidate. Unless of course, he promoted Moore to try to cover up the fact that they actually did harass and threaten him to shred Q’s police report. The Police Chief caves because the union attorney comes calling? If he didn’t deserve the promotion, why did he get it. But of course, when Moore was promoted, the previously-promoted captain was demoted, so we would have more captains than necessary, right? Oh yeah, that didn’t happen, did it? I guess if it’s not your money, you don’t care if it’s wasted.
FD Palace 164 was a colossal waste of money. I think the land was donated, but us taxpayers footed the rest of the $5 million bill. Not to mention all the other foolish expenditures cited in the previous posts. I’ve got to go take my medication now…….
According to the City of Upland web site…Adams makes 183k per year. Add in benefits and retirement and it raises substantially but not to 360! Knowing some inside info…Moore was 3rd on the promotion list out of 5 to Lieutenant, not Captain. The top two candidates had Masters degrees and Moore doesn’t. Adams advised against settling the extortion lawsuit but was overruled by his boss…Q. Anyway, that is the reality so fire away everybody. In fairness, I do know him and his goal has always been to make UPD a place where the employees want to be so they want to come to work and serve the community. His heart is in the right place. Unfortunately he carries everybody’s problems on his back and tries to solve them all.
CAO, oops CEO/KING/Napoleon Deverauxas salary and benefits are at least 750000 year. The state should investigate him and Ovitt who made this thievery possible. Ovitt will wallow in the fires of hell for eternity for his downright stealing money of the taxpayers to give to his friends.
Upland and other cities are out of control.
to The Reality: In all seriousness… Can you tell us why Adams followed Quincey to the dark side and lied? It appears that Moore is the only one with the huevos to stand up to Quincey.
The manager of Upland should not be making more than cities comparable to Upland and no extras. No spiking before retirment, reduce their retirement by the amount they earn privately before the age of 65. I could go on. These practices are widespread throughout the unionized industries particularly in CA. Its a crying shame.
@ The Reality: Thank you for shedding more light on the Adams situation. My boyfriend spent seven of his years as a police officer with the City of Upland and tells me Adams is one of the good guys. I’m looking forward to the day when he and some other targets of this blog are vindicated of their supposed crimes.
Extortion… that’s how I see it too. What does that say about Moore? How come he comes out smelling like a rose? It was a lucky break for him that he was involved in the Quincey incident or he’d still be a sergeant. Moore was bought. What does that say about his character?
The Reality, you state what should be obvious to everyone. Quincey’s duties did include overseeing the Police Department and that meant Adams too. Of course Quincey wanted that report muffled. It made him look like the fool that he was. In the end though, like you say, Quincey would have the final word over what happened to Moore.
When Adams came out in the paper about his health condition, bloggers were quick to assume that his dangerously high blood pressure was due to “worries.” It was implied that he was guilty of something, hence the “worries.” That’s assuming a lot. High blood pressure comes with the aging process (it’s rare in young people), high cholesterol levels, hereditary factors, lack of exercise, etc. Sure, it can be exacerbated by stress (worries). But it can also be exacerbated by anger, frustration, or a host of other emotions. How would you feel if you had to work closely with someone who named you in a lawsuit? I would be angry AND frustrated at the promotion. More than likely, though, Adams is suffering from the stress that comes with being too nice a guy, as there seems to be a lot of politics (backstabbing) going on in the Police Department.
Finally, for those of you who love to jump to conclusions and assume that any rewriting of police reports is suspicious – like Adams says, it’s often done. Prior to this “scandal” ever taking place – years ago, in fact – my boyfriend told me how many times he sent reports back to the patrol officer to rewrite because they were of poor quality and even how many times he had to rewrite reports himself. There is a reason for this. Incorrect grammar or a misplaced comma can totally change a sentence and the perception of how the events transpired. The reporting officer may leave out important details – not deliberately, but in haste. If a third party (training officer, for example) reads the submitted report and it’s not clear to him/her how the events transpired or if it seems incomplete, the report goes back to be rewritten/revised. The report should be in chronological order, detail oriented, and free of grammar and spelling errors. A poorly written report reflects badly on the police officer and the police department they represent. The report may end up in court some day, years later even. Would you remember the specific details of an incident years later if they were left out of a report? Can you even remember whose phone number it is on a slip of paper you wrote down a week ago? According to a study performed by the Coro Foundation (a not-for -profit organization that teaches leadership skills in public affairs), police “report-writing” deficiencies are still one of the factors contributing to the high number of cases turned down for prosecution by the DA’s Office.” (“Police Report Writing. ” San Francisco Office of the Budget Analyst. 17 Mar. 2008).
Let me say it one more time. Yes, Steve Adams is a great guy, BUT he knew better. He knew of the correct routes he could have taken, but chose the one he did.
Adams is F-I-N-I-S-H-E-D in U-P-L-A-N-D. FINISHED.