Acting Sheriff Anderson yesterday addressed the Board of Supervisors. We'll have video posted this afternoon.  Additionally, AOCDS (Deputy Sheriffs' Union) sent a letter out to their members, which is posted below the Acting Sheriff's remarks. Here's what the Acting Sheriff had to say.:

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Board for allowing me to address you this morning.

My name is Assistant Sheriff Jack Anderson, Acting as Sheriff of the County of Orange.

Retired Sheriff Michael Carona had twice addressed this honorable Board last year on the matter of the 3%@50 retirement for the current public safety members and those who retired after July 27th of 2002 from the Sheriff’s Department. I listened to Retired Sheriff Carona’s presentations before this Board and have since had the opportunity to read over his notes and PowerPoint presentation. Since members of this Board were present during those presentations, for the sake of brevity I will not repeat previous comments that were made.

I want to begin by stating that as a resident of Orange County that I, as I am sure the over three-million residents of our community, truly appreciate this Board’s efforts to be fiscally responsible in the management of our all too scarce tax-dollars. I am going on record today to say that I applaud this Board’s efforts in seeking ways to reduce the unfunded liability related to the 3%@50 retirement plan for public safety member employees of the County.

Acting as the Sheriff of the County of Orange, today I speak on behalf of public safety throughout our great County. Orange County enjoys some of the safest communities, jails, courts, public transportation systems, harbors, and airport in our nation. These accomplishments are a direct result of the County’s ability to recruit and retain some of the finest public safety members who work for the Sheriff’s Department. Because of the professionalism and dedication of the men and women of the Sheriff’s Department, surveys have shown that over 95-percent of the residents whom we serve feel safe in and around their homes, neighborhoods and businesses.

As I said to this Board only two weeks ago, I have experience in overseeing the recruiting operations of the Sheriff’s Department as a supervisor and a manager. I would ask that this Board consider the potential ramifications of today’s proposed action upon the quality of public safety the residents and businesses of Orange County enjoy every day.

If the Board’s proposed action is approved what message would that send to our current employees and the potential recruiting pool of applicants seeking a career in law enforcement in Orange County? The Sheriff’s Department would lose its ability to be competitive in the job marketplace, some number of our current employees and the best candidates in the job market would understandably seek employment elsewhere, relegating the County to having to lower its hiring standards to the minimum allowed by law to meet its human resources needs and public safety obligations.

Orange County is rich in its abundance of economic opportunity, where the entrepreneur spirit is strong. A place where businesses flourish and the unemployment rate is currently the third lowest out of the 58 counties in the state. Examples of the economic strength of Orange County include the Gross County Product which is over 161 billion dollars, representing 11% of the Gross State Product, and the Taxable Sales in the county is over 55 billion dollars annually.  In comparison to the other counties in the state, the strength of Orange County’s economy today is strong.

There is a direct relationship between the quality of public safety and the economic health of a community. While there is a modest cost associated with not only being safe but also feeling safe, there is also an economic dividend reaped throughout the County when there exist a quality of life that promotes prosperity.

While I am not a legal expert, it appears to me that the matter of the unfunded pension liability related to 3%@50 that this Board is addressing can be simply drilled down to two salient points.

1. I believe that the 3%@50 retirement pension agreement between the County and the Deputy Sheriff’s Association was negotiated in good faith in 2001 during the collective bargaining process.

2. Secondly, I believe that in this matter that neither the courts, codified or case law is where this Board will find a resolution to what it is seeking to accomplish, but I do believe that this Board can best resolve the matter of the unfunded pension liability from where it began… through the collective bargaining process.

Again, I wish to thank the Board for acting as good stewards of the public’s funds and exercising its fiduciary responsibility on behalf of the taxpayers of Orange County. However, by supporting the proposed action before this Board you may find that while your intent was to reduce an unfunded liability today, your actions may be at the cost of future loss revenues through detrimental unintended consequences to our community’s intrinsic quality of life and its economic prosperity.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Board.

The letter from AOCDS:

PENSION LITIGATION UPDATE
January 29, 2008

At today’s meeting of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, the Board discussed directing their outside counsel, Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, to move forward and “obtain a declaration of unconstitutionality and injunction against OCERS prohibiting it from paying out, in any month following Court declaration any increase pension benefits arising from Resolution 01-410 that are based on years of service rendered before June 28, 2002 and taking various actions to ensure that the rights and interests of affected active-duty and retired peace officers are protected to the greatest extent possible”.

What that all means is that the Board considered whether or not to take action to remove the 3% at 50 retirement formula for all of your service prior to June 28, 2002.

Over one hundred active and retired members joined the AOCDS Board of Directors, Staff and the law firm of Morrison & Foerster at today’s meeting. Presentations were made to the Board of Supervisors by President Wayne Quint, attorney James Bennett from the law firm of Morrison & Foerster, President Joe Kerr of the Orange County Professional Firefighters’ Association, President Arlene Pavey of the California Teachers’ Association Retired as well as several members of the community.

Despite these efforts, the Board of Supervisors unanimously (5-0) voted to move forward to seek an injunction from the courts to have OCERS re-calculate current and future retiree benefits to reflect service at the 2% at 50 formula for service prior to June 28, 2002.

Regardless of this action, our legal team believes we will be successful in any court that the County seeks relief from. Our resolve remains firm that the County continues to be “wrong on the facts and wrong on the law”. Be advised that the AOCDS does not stand alone in this fight. We have received commitments of support from numerous organizations and groups throughout California.

We do not believe that this issue will be resolved overnight. It appears that we have a long road ahead of us before we are able to convince the County to stop wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars in this futile effort. Please be assured that we will continue this fight until this issue is resolved in favor of the men and women of the AOCDS, both past and present, who have placed their lives on the line to make the Orange County community a safe and wonderful place to live.

AOCDS BOARD OF DIRECTORS