| Submit your comments on this article |
| Economy |
| Could TriMet's fat benefits sink the transit agency? |
| 2009-07-18 |
PORTLAND, Ore. - You may have heard the radio ads calling out TriMet, which spends as much as $1,900 per employee, per month, just for health insurance benefits.Radio Ad: "Free breast enhancement, fitness centers, eyeglasses, no co-pay -- and taxpayers are paying for all of it!"That's enough to win the so called 'Golden Fleece Award' for wasting taxpayer money but you will be floored when you see the millions more TriMet is spending every year on people who don't even work there. Over the last month, KATU investigated TriMet's union benefits package and we learned the same kind of deal that drove GM into bankruptcy is happening right here, even as the transit agency faces a $31 million budget deficit. TriMet's drivers can opt into a plan to pay nothing for health insurance and it turns out the agency is the most generous transit agency in the country, picking up the entire tab for union employees, their families and all retirees. "I'll tell you what, that is an awful good thing," said MAX rider Stan Welsh. "Maybe I'll move out here and drive one of these. Get benefits for the rest of my life - right?" "I wish my employer would do that," said MAX rider Allan Ravitch. "Why not?" "The cost of fringe benefits is cannibalizing the general fund, so this cannot continue," said John Charles (pictured at right), president of Cascade Policy Institute. He says TriMet's union benefits are destroying the agency's financial viability. "You have a growing number of retirees who are drawing the life out of the current organization," he said. TriMet said it paid out $108.1 million in fringe benefits last year but an outside audit that accounts for long-term liability shows TriMet is actually responsible for more in fringe benefits than wages. That audit found that between 2001 and 2008, benefits rose from 61 percent of wages to 118 percent - a total of $151.8 million. An easy way to look at it - for every dollar paid, TriMet is reponsible for $1.18 in benefits. "When the cost of benefits exceeds the cost of payroll, that's ludicrous," Charles said. Particularly when more than half of TriMet's revenues come not from fares but taxes imposed on workers in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. "Every time they need more money, they go to the state legislature and get an increase in the payroll tax rate, which is the cash cow that subsidizes TriMet," Charles said. |
| Posted by:Fred |