[las vegas drunk]

Originally Posted by brucerby

It is no secret that some of the most lucrative public sector jobs are those of fire fighters. The total salary & benefits link to Clark County stats is evidence why that's so.

$85,000 to $150,000 just in salary PLUS very generous benefits and unusually early retirement options. The work schedule affords many fire employees a chance to have a second career, too. It's quite amazing what governments have given away, with no thought to how future taxpayers will shoulder all these gold-plated benefits...:-(

...and if you cite these examples, if you point how how rich these deals are, you're likely to be accused of not supporting fire fighters and "not caring if neighborhoods burn to the ground!"

Posters who say they don't care, who say it's none of their business what these folks make, are part of the problem.

A better way to sum it up is:

Public sector employees.....parasites

Taxpayers, i.e. private sector business owners and employees.....host

Any questions?

[quixotic59]

Originally Posted by las vegas drunk

A better way to sum it up is:

Public sector employees.....parasites

Taxpayers, i.e. private sector business owners and employees.....host

Any questions?

Actually, yes. We have long been considering moving to Las Vegas from New York City. As you may or may not remember, we have spent the last 3 summers there to get to know the city better. There are many things we love about Las Vegas and feel it is immensely superior to New York City.

Why, however, as two healthy, rational, productive members of society who have both dedicated their careers to educating children, would we want to move to a city that harbors your above mentioned sentiment?

[Everdeen]

quixotic59:

The people to whom you were referring are not the majority, but do have the loudest shrill.

[MadManofBethesda]

Originally Posted by las vegas drunk

You do know that people that are generally scumbags can do a good deed once in a while. That doesn't change the overall picture.

So true.

But eventually their true nature reveals itself and they end up unemployed.

[MadManofBethesda]

Originally Posted by quixotic59

The "public" is grossly misinformed....

You're wasting your time trying to educate people who don't care what the truth is. They have in their midset that public employees are lazy parasites who all have gold-plated pensions and cadillac health care. Nevermind that there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of different pension and health care programs that cover the millions of public employees at the city, county, state and federal level; they think they know what they're talking about because they've seen something on the Internet that may talk about one or two outlier employees or even whole programs that cover a small, specific subset of employees.

Their ignorance knows no bounds and is only exceeded by their apoplectic hyperbolic vitriol.

[las vegas drunk]

Originally Posted by quixotic59

Actually, yes. We have long been considering moving to Las Vegas from New York City. As you may or may not remember, we have spent the last 3 summers there to get to know the city better. There are many things we love about Las Vegas and feel it is immensely superior to New York City.

Why, however, as two healthy, rational, productive members of society who have both dedicated their careers to educating children, would we want to move to a city that harbors your above mentioned sentiment?

It has gotten too hostile in here so I will decline to comment further. I have said my opinion, but trust me, I am not alone in it.

[MomMom]

Originally Posted by quixotic59

Actually, yes. We have long been considering moving to Las Vegas from New York City. As you may or may not remember, we have spent the last 3 summers there to get to know the city better. There are many things we love about Las Vegas and feel it is immensely superior to New York City.

Why, however, as two healthy, rational, productive members of society who have both dedicated their careers to educating children, would we want to move to a city that harbors your above mentioned sentiment?

Quixotic59, you're taking the opinions of depressed, never happy anywhere anonymous posters who use a Las Vegas relocation forum to voice their displeasure at their lot in life, at the city and their country, as gospel truth that all residents of Las Vegas are of the same opinion as theirs?

C'mon now, you know better than that my friend. Don't give up your dream, and don't base your life choices strictly by what you read on a public chat forum either. These type of chat boards are great vehicles for those who have no one else to complain about their life displeasures to.

[BBMW]

The mentality in Vegas is much different than NYC. NYC was one of the leading cities in developing a large public sector workforce. When you have so many people living in relative small a space, it just takes more maintenance. So the public in general has more public workers, and is more tolerant of having to pay for them (generally seeing more benefits from having them.) You have a huge transit system, public health system, the biggest police force in the world, the largest school system in the country, I could go on and on. Other then teachers, NYC has the highest per capita public employment in the country (by far).

Vegas is way different. It never got the whole public sector thing like NY did. Everything is much more privatized and suburban in nature (from a New Yorkers perspective.) I grew up Long Island Republican, and it that mentality, but even more. You're much more on your own in Vegas than in NY, and the people there like it that way.

Originally Posted by quixotic59

Actually, yes. We have long been considering moving to Las Vegas from New York City. As you may or may not remember, we have spent the last 3 summers there to get to know the city better. There are many things we love about Las Vegas and feel it is immensely superior to New York City.

Why, however, as two healthy, rational, productive members of society who have both dedicated their careers to educating children, would we want to move to a city that harbors your above mentioned sentiment?

[Robustus]

Originally Posted by BBMW

The mentality in Vegas is much different than NYC. NYC was one of the leading cities in developing a large public sector workforce. When you have so many people living in relative small a space, it just takes more maintenance. So the public in general has more public workers, and is more tolerant of having to pay for them (generally seeing more benefits from having them.) You have a huge transit system, public health system, the biggest police force in the world, the largest school system in the country, I could go on and on. Other then teachers, NYC has the highest per capita public employment in the country (by far).

Yeah, NYC went pretty overboard. My former boss's father was a maintenance guy in the NYC public school system and retired in his early 50s with a $6,000/mo pension check, tax-free, until the day he dies. He's in his 70s now.

I know those sorts of deals are also largely still in place for MTA workers and Port Authority workers as well (at least for the middle aged folks who've been there for a while).

[Daddys///M3]

Originally Posted by las vegas drunk

It has gotten too hostile in here so I will decline to comment further. I have said my opinion, but trust me, I am not alone in it.

You haven't seen hostile chief, especially considering you have a supposedly good friend that is a public servant and you have admitted that you would never do what your friend and I do.

Public sector employee here, Nevada Dept. of Corrections. Base salary is under $41,000. Minus 21% towards my "gold plated" pension. That is $8000 a year that I contribute toward my retirement. How much do you contribute to yours? I grossed around $47,000 last year due to overtime. Mandatory overtime mind you as I hate working double shifts and would never volunteer to. For my efforts PERS took 21% of my overtime pay. No problem, right? After all, I can pad my final 3 years average salary with OT, right? Wrong. My retirement is based on base pay so even though they take more, I don't get more (end to misconception 1).

Last year Public Employees Benefit Program was forecasting a $80mm shortfall, so insurance premiums went up. If I were to insure my family with the low deductible HMO option it would cost me over $400 a month, similar to private insurance. Since my wife has culinary union insurance (poor private sector worker that she is) I simply chose the high deductible PPO plan for myself (had to pick one or be dropped from wifey's insurance). This means I have to come out of pocket $1900 before insurance picks up dime one. Good thing I have that cadillac health plan (end to misconception 2).

Now, as someone who has a bad lot in life due to circumstance of his own making, who are you to try and call someone who stepped up to the plate to do a job that most won't for less than $600 a week take home a parasite? Isn't this just another form of class warfare? Where are you currently employed again? Is your situation my fault? To hell with personal responsibility though. And don't give me that crap about I should see my salary cut because your's was. If you were more employable (more marketable skill set, education, etc.) then perhaps you would be making more money instead of bemoaning those of us that do make a little more.

FWIW, I do agree with some posters regarding the lack of accountability. It is incredibly difficult to fire someone from a government job and it shows. To think that there are people that make more money than me simply because they've been an employee longer while work much harder than they do genuinely perturbs me. It is, however, the system I signed up for. I also agree that there is much too much waste and bureaucracy in government. What prison needs 4 associate wardens? That said, it seems that this issue has moved from an intelligent discussion of serious issues to a us vs. them schoolyard argument complete with adolescent name calling (parasites) and dumbed down arguements.