Homeless in Arizona

Blockwatch grants - A big waste of money!!!!

Blockwatch grants - a government welfare program for cops???

Source

Phoenix Block Watch allocations draw questions

Youth programs get portion of crime-prevention money

by Connie Cone Sexton - Aug. 8, 2012 11:01 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Since 2008, more than $1.5 million of taxpayer money for Phoenix neighborhood crime prevention that could have been awarded to traditional Block Watch programs was given to programs designed to steer youths from crime, even though some question whether the latter is effective.

An Arizona Republic analysis of the past five years of Phoenix Neighborhood Block Watch grant awards found that more than one in five grants benefited youth programs, including Wake Up Clubs, sports or academic programs.

The money was used to take children to Lake Pleasant, the Arizona Science Center, Kartchner Caverns and other destinations as a reward for participating in a Phoenix police-led after-school program and for completing community-service projects.

Meanwhile, at least 15 traditional Block Watch grant applicants initially received no funding this year from the annual pool of $1.2 million, despite requests for items such as security lighting and cameras to catch graffiti vandals. However, at least three of those groups were later granted at least partial funding on appeal. The Phoenix City Council is expected to vote on final allocations in the next few weeks.

Crime-prevention specialists, while acknowledging the benefits of teaching children values like respect for police officers and community service, question whether the emphasis -- to deter children from a life of crime -- is effective. [So one of the things these Blockwatch grants do is brainwash the kiddies into worshiping cops! I bet Hitler and Stalin's Blockwatch grants did the same thing]

Voters created the Phoenix Neighborhood Block Watch Grant Program with Proposition 301, a sales-tax increase passed in 1993. Today, those who oversee it are divided over the best way to fight crime. For some, it's getting neighbors to monitor their streets, installing security lighting or Block Watch signs, using walkie-talkies for neighborhood patrols and holding community events to promote crime prevention. For others, it means continuing to invest in programs for youth.

Since 2008, more than $36,000 paid for youth sports at Granada East School in central Phoenix. In May, the City Council approved $7,600 for 2012-13 to pay coaches, referees, league fees and transportation for boys and girls to participate in basketball, soccer, baseball and softball. [Sounds like the money we were told was going to prevent crime is used for sports programs.]

In 2011, the Wilson Coalition neighborhood in southeast Phoenix received $9,800 to pay for after-school playground, library and gym supervisors for students at Wilson Elementary School.

Phoenix officials said there is anecdotal evidence that youth programs curb crime but could not provide research to back that up. [Translation - trust us, we know what we are doing even if it doesn't look like it.] Some members of the city Block Watch Oversight Committee question the investment.

"They sound like good programs, but do they really prevent crime? An argument can be made that it's not," said John Schroeder, a member of the City Council-appointed Block Watch Oversight Committee, which reviews grant applications and makes recommendations.

Every year, neighborhood groups in Phoenix may apply for up to $10,000 for a crime-prevention project. The Phoenix Police Department, which administers the Block Watch program, presents the committee's recommendations to the City Council. The newest round of grants were approved in May without discussion.

For the fiscal year that began July 1, about $224,000 has been designated for 24 Wake Up Clubs. That's 18.6 percent of total funding.

Of the 211 applications, 25 groups were initially unfunded. Among the rejections: Tatum Park Neighborhood Block Watch in northeast Phoenix, which requested $6,100 for projects that included solar lights for security; and Discovery at Villa de Paz in southwest Phoenix, which sought $9,800 for a flashlight camera to catch vandals. Funding questioned

Most of the youth money has supported about two dozen Wake Up Clubs.

The programs are held one hour a week after school and for about five weeks during the summer. Phoenix police officers serve as class leaders -- some making $60 or more an hour -- working with children on community-improvement projects or homework. [So the Blockwatch grants are also a jobs program for cops - some who are getting paid $60/hr which is about $120,000 a year]

During the past four years, each club was given $3,000 to $5,000 to pay for police officers to operate an individual program. Another $3,000 to $5,000 was awarded to fund admission and transportation costs to various attractions or to travel to community-service projects. The field trips, sometimes done in summer, are for children who participate in Wake Up Club meetings during the school year.

Phoenix police Officer Robin Ontiveros, who oversees the Wake Up Clubs, said she has seen the difference they make in the lives of children. "It's very effective because it's run by the Police Department. It's like a mentoring program." [Translation - I'm getting paid $60 and hour to brainwash kids into loving cops. I love my high paying do nothing job as a police officer]

Wake Up Clubs were started in 1995 by the department's Community Effort to Abate Street Crime, after a drive-by shooting of a 4-year-old in south Phoenix spurred residents to ask for help.

Critics say funding for Wake Up Clubs may benefit the community in the long run but hurt groups seeking money for crime-fighting programs. Schroeder questions the money going to youth programs and wants to see research and statistics on their impact.

The first year northeast Phoenix resident Jerry Cline was on the Block Watch Oversight Committee, he noticed all Wake Up Club applications were identical, seeking the same amounts of money to take kids to the same places. By the second year, he started asking questions. This year, he said there were a lot of "conversations" about whether the clubs should continue to be funded through Block Watch.

"When you get close to running out of money, you start thinking whether you should use the money to fund other projects," Cline said.

This year, for the first time since 2010, most Wake Up Club requests were not fully funded. Still, the oversight committee didn't make drastic cuts, except in the case of one school, Simpson Elementary, which last year sent kids on 30 field trips with Block Watch funds.

For fiscal 2012-13, Simpson's Wake Up Club was given $6,198 of their $10,000 request. Most clubs saw their $8,900 to $10,000 requests trimmed by only $100 or $200.

'Faith' and fairness

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said he believes children's programs "pay long-term dividends" and said he takes the oversight committee's recommendations on "faith" that it knows what's best for the community. [Translation - Trust your government masters, we know what we are doing. Even if we don't have an facts to verify that we are producing results]

Judy Welch, captain of the Villa de Paz Block Watch, near Camelback Road and 102nd Avenue, disagrees. She said her group's request for a flashlight camera to catch graffiti violators was denied. She doesn't think it's right that funding instead went to Wake Up Clubs.

"What do they have to do with crime prevention?" she asked. "Block Watch money is about graffiti and vandalism. ... You'd have to have a lot of research into following these kids for years to find out if it helped."

Abby Dunton, coordinator for the Farmington Park Block Watch near 91st Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road, said her group was denied $10,000 for an audio, solar-powered, bilingual flashing-beacon system to help pedestrians at a busy crosswalk. During an appeal to the oversight committee last week, her project was approved.

For Cline, of the oversight committee, the question about Wake Up Clubs remains, "How does it deter crime?"

Early intervention

Crime prevention takes many forms, including Wake Up Clubs, said Phoenix police Officer Deb Iodice, the Block Watch Program coordinator. Officers talk to the kids about things like bullying and drugs. [More of those $60/hr jobs for cops to brainwash the kiddies????]

"You can see the wheels in their head turning," Iodice said. [Yea, and you can also see the dollars signs dancing around in the head of Phoenix police Officer Deb Iodice]

Iodice acknowledges that the city can't quantify how many crimes are prevented this way. "There's no great way to track it. I think that's a disservice, but we're here to educate people," Iodice said. [Yea, I think it great that I am getting paid $60 and hour for a job where I don't have to document that I am producing results]

She understands the criticism of using crime-prevention money for an after-school program. "Sometimes the program kind of gets a negative vibe because it costs a lot of money, but I think it's a fantastic program," Iodice said. [Yea, and she isn't even going to address the question of does it make sense to pay cops $60 and hour for programs that don't do anything other then fatten the wallets of the cops that give them.]

Daniel Morales, a prevention coordinator at Touchstone Behavioral Health, a non-profit organization that works to help young people lead productive lives, said getting kids to feel better about themselves can help keep them from underage drinking, drug use and getting into trouble. [Wile it is a non-profit organization, I bet Daniel Morales is getting paid big bucks for his part in the program. Just like the cops are]

Miguel "Mickey" Villarreal, 14, said he took his Wake Up Club experience in middle school seriously. "It helped me open up and be more accepting of others. And they teach you the consequences of drugs and getting into trouble. I've seen my older brother grow up and make the wrong decisions." [Translation - the police brainwashing worked on Miguel "Mickey" Villarreal]

Villarreal, now a freshman at Trevor Browne High School in west Phoenix, returned this summer to volunteer with a Wake Up Club.

Republic reporters Ofelia Madrid, Matt Dempsey and Samantha Bush contributed to this article.

Goldwater files suit to stop Phoenix pension ‘spiking’

Source

Goldwater files suit to stop Phoenix pension ‘spiking’

By Craig Harris The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Aug 15, 2013 10:37 PM

The Goldwater Institute, a conservative taxpayer-watchdog group, is taking Phoenix to court again, this time to stop so-called pension spiking for public-safety officers.

Goldwater, a Phoenix non-profit, filed suit Thursday in Maricopa County Superior Court to stop the practice that allows Phoenix police officers and firefighters to increase the amount of their pensions by cashing in unused sick leave, vacation and other benefits at the end of their careers.

The two sides also are embroiled in a suit about whether it’s legal for the city to allow police employees to be compensated for work they do on behalf of a labor union. That case is pending.

The suit filed Thursday came after The Arizona Republic in May reported on the policy, which raised questions about the legality of the practice.

Pension spiking, which is popular with police officers and firefighters, has allowed a handful of Phoenix public-safety retirees to become millionaires, and 10 others increased their lump-sum retirement benefits to more than $700,000 each through the Deferred Retirement Option Plan. All of them also received annual pensions greater than $114,000 a year.

Recipients with the biggest payouts are veteran, upper-level managers who have the highest salaries in the Police and Fire departments. Pension spiking, however, does benefit rank-and-file officers.

The average public-safety pension for a Phoenix retiree is $59,341, about $10,000 more than the statewide average. Those employees typically have not contributed to Social Security and will not recieve it.

Records show that the city’s public-safety retirement cost has ballooned to roughly $129million for fiscal 2014, compared with $7.2million in fiscal 2003. Investment losses have been one of the biggest reasons for the increased cost, though pension spiking also has contributed to the increase.

That’s because cities such as Phoenix pay higher premiums to the statewide Public Safety Personnel Retirement System based on liabilities of its members.

Inflated pensions from spiking increase liabilities.

Doug Cole, a spokesman for the public-safety retirement system, said that the pension system has no position on the suit and that it pays benefits based on compensation records provided to the trust by Phoenix and other members.

“This is an issue that the system is not involved with,” Cole said.

The Goldwater Institute contends the policy violates state law and costs taxpayers millions of additional dollars. The group sued the city, Mayor Greg Stanton, the City Council, City Manager David Cavazos and the Phoenix Police Sergeants and Lieutenants Association.

“This is not about cops or public-safety officers,” said Jon Riches, an attorney for Goldwater who previously was with the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. “This is about the city of Phoenix blatantly violating a state law. I served on active duty, and I know what it’s like to serve a dangerous job. Public-safety officers should be rewarded for a hazardous profession. Police work and being a firefighter is a noble profession. But it doesn’t allow that profession or the city of Phoenix to break rules.”

The lawsuit, which has three Phoenix residents as plaintiffs, asks for the practice to be declared illegal and for it to be stopped.

If successful, the suit will apply to all of Phoenix’s public-safety unions and management not covered by collective bargaining, Riches said.

The lawsuit contends that the city is unlawfully including payment in lieu of vacation, sick leave, unused compensatory time and fringe benefits, such as a uniform allowance, in computing the officer’s salary at the end of his or her career.

City officials and Phoenix public-safety union members have said using such benefits to increase compensation is a negotiated benefit and is not illegal.

The increased compensation number significantly increases or “spikes” annual retirement benefits — and the cost to taxpayers. That’s because the pay at the career’s end is a key component in determining pension benefits. The other is length of service.

State law defines what type of payments are included as compensation to compute retirement benefits for those in the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, of which Phoenix is the largest member.

The law says that “unused sick leave, payment in lieu of vacation, payment for unused compensatory time or payment for any fringe benefits” cannot be used as compensation to compute retirement benefits.

State law also says that only “base salary, overtime pay, shift differential pay, military differential wage pay, compensatory time used by an employee in lieu of overtime not otherwise paid by an employer and holiday pay” can be used to calculate pension benefits.

Stanton and City Council members Thelda Williams and Daniel Valenzuela in July asked Cavazos to end the policy, but no changes have been made because the city plans to honor its labor-contract obligations until next fiscal year.

“As a matter of policy, I do not comment on litigation against the city,” Stanton said in a statement sent to The Republic.

“Last month, I joined with two members of the City Council to ask the city manager to present options to eliminate pension spiking for all employees. I will continue to work with my colleagues to end this practice."

Cavazos, however, on Aug.1 said he was leaving the city to take a similar position in Santa Ana, Calif.

He is retiring effective Oct.16, after nearly three decades in city government.

The announcement came about seven months after the City Council approved his controversial $78,000 pay raise, bumping his base salary to $315,000.

The pay raise will significantly increase his city pension.

A call to his office Thursday was not returned.

“As soon as the city receives the lawsuit, we will carefully review it and appropriately respond,” city spokeswoman Toni Maccarone said.

Cavazos, as a longtime member of the City of Phoenix Employee Retirement System, is eligible for a full pension and can cash in up to 60percent of his unused sick leave to enhance his retirement benefits, according to his contract with the city.

The lawsuit filed Thursday does not affect Cavazos or any municipal employees who are members of the Phoenix retirement system, Riches said.

“What is of interest with the city manager’s contract is reflective in the culture of the city of Phoenix and its deliberative process,” Riches said. “This is simply not an appropriate way to use sick leave.”

Goldwater has expressed confidence that it will win its latest suit, citing case law from across the country in which judges have ruled that accrued vacation time cannot be included to increase compensation when calculating public pension benefits.

Sal DiCiccio, named as a defendant because he is on the City Council, has been an outspoken critic of public pension systems.

He said the City Council should immediately end pension spiking.

“Taxpayers have been ripped off for so many years,” DiCiccio said. “It’s clearly illegal.”

DiCiccio said the additional money used for public-safety pensions is taking funding from after-school programs, libraries, senior services and police on the streets.

Phoenix, like other cities across Arizona, was forced to cut public-safety positions because of the recession and rising pension costs.

Republic reporter Dustin Gardiner contributed to this article.

Phoenix should obey the law and end pension spiking

Phoenix should obey the law and end pension spiking

As expected, the Goldwater Institute sued the city of Phoenix today, hoping to end an obviously illegal scheme that has allowed some high-level police and fire officials to not just feather their retirement nests but to gild the things.

This should be welcome news to Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton who during his campaign called for an end to pension spiking. [Rubbish!!!! Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton is owned by the Phoenix Police union and shovels pork and money to the cops in exchange for their votes]

Or not.

It’s been three months since Republic reporter Craig Harris brought the spiking issue to light. Thus far the city’s response has been to insist that the spiking is legal and punt until contract negotiations this fall.

Phoenix cut back on spiking by civilian employees last year, though it still allows them to artificially inflate their pensions with unused vacation as well as sick leave accrued before July 2012.

But city leaders have been unwilling to touch spiking by police and firefighters.

This, even though state law says members of the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System can’t boost their pensions using “payment for unused sick leave, payment in lieu of vacation, payment for unused compensatory time or payment for any fringe benefits.”

So, the city struck a deal with police and fire unions to allow “monthly pay in lieu of sick or vacation accrual” in the final years before retirement.

“These are not payments for sick leave or vacation earned but not taken,” the city’s legal department reasoned in an e-mail explaining the policy. “Rather, they are bargained-for salary increases in exchange for accepting a lessened benefit package.”

Nicely danced, don’t you think?

Most rank-and-file police officers and firefighters see only a modest increase in their pensions due to spiking. But some in the top echelons have turned the spike into the fine art of a slam dunk, earning more in retirement than while actually doing the job.

If Phoenix police and firefighters are underpaid, then raise their pay. But Phoenix officials should do it in a way that doesn’t break the law — not to mention the public’s trust.

The Emperor Wears No Clothes

The Emperor Wears No Clothes

If you want a thousand good reasons to legalize, or re-legalize marijuana the book The Emperor Wears No Clothes has those reasons for you.

NSA Surveillance - Lady Liberty Raped

NSA Surveillance - TSA goons destroying America

Sacrifice a politician????

Files show NSA cracks, weakens Internet encryption

1) I have always suspected that the NSA can use it's supercomputers to crack PGP and other public key encrypted messages. But I suspected it took some effort to decrypt the messages. Is that still true??? Or it is now a trivial inexpensive task for NSA to read messages that are encrypted with PGP and other public key??

2) Just what are these "secret portals" or "hooks" that the NSA has created??? I suspect they are hooks that tell the encryption software used by HTTPS encryption to create encrypted data that is easily decrypted by NSA and other government agencies.

3) This shows that it is really not safe to put ANYTHING that you would like to keep secret from anybody, especially the government on the internet. Same goes for putting the data on telephone lines, radio waves or any public communication method.

Files show NSA cracks, weakens Internet encryption

By Michael Winter USA Today Thu Sep 5, 2013 4:51 PM

U.S. and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption designed to provide online privacy and security, documents leaked by Edward Snowden show.

In their clandestine, decade-long effort to defeat digital scrambling, the National Security Agency, along with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), have used supercomputers to crack encryption codes and have inserted secret portals into software with the help of technology companies, the Guardian, the New York Times and ProPublica reported Thursday.

The NSA has also maintained control over international encryption standards.

As the Times points out, encryption "guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world."

The NSA calls its decryption efforts the "price of admission for the U.S. to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace."

A 2010 memo describing an NSA briefing to British agents about the secret hacking said, "For the past decade, N.S.A. has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies. Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable."

The GCHQ is working to penetrate encrypted traffic on what it called the "big four" service providers ---Hotmail, Google, Yahoo and Facebook, the Guardian said.

Chapel-run program at Sky Harbor seeks funds

Phoenix spends $75,000 a year on church at Sky Harbor Airport???

From this article it sounds like the City of Phoenix has been violating the Arizona Constitution and illegally shoveling $7,000 a month to the chapel at Sky Harbor Airport

Source

Chapel-run program at Sky Harbor seeks funds

Travelers Aid assists those in distress; city not renewing contract

By Amy B Wang The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Sep 1, 2013 9:25 PM

A place of refuge for travelers at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is seeking help of its own.

The Sky Harbor interfaith chapel needs about $7,000 a month to continue Travelers Aid services after Phoenix did not renew its contract for the program earlier this year, Chaplain Al Young said. [So Phoenix has been mixing government and religion in violation of the Arizona Constitution and giving this church at Sky Harbor Airport $7,000 a month to operate???]

Many airports around the world have interfaith chapels, enclaves where anyone can seek momentary respite from the potentially stressful environment outside. Sky Harbor is unusual in that its chapel also houses the airport’s Travelers Aid program, Young said. [But per the Arizona Constitution and US Constitution government run airports are not allowed to mix religion and government and fund churches or chapels!!]

He said the Travelers Aid program serves as a “safety net” for those who are in distress — perhaps homeless, recovering from an addiction, stranded or fleeing a domestic-violence situation — and have nowhere else to turn after getting to the airport. [Homeless folks at the airport??? Last time I checked Homeland Security was chasing homeless folks out of the airport]

Although the airport chaplain held the contract for the Travelers Aid program, it is completely separate from the airport chaplaincy and the services provided there, Sky Harbor spokeswoman Deborah Ostreicher said.

She said airport staff and volunteers have access to local resources that can provide support for victims of domestic violence, the homeless and other cases, which were often handled by Travelers Aid.

“The Travelers Aid contract was put into effect when the airport had fewer police officers, operational staff and volunteers,” Ostreicher said in an e-mail. “Now with over 400 customer-service volunteers and increased airport staffing and police, it is no longer necessary to contract this service.”

The religious ministry is funded entirely by donations from other sources, so the chapel itself is not in danger of closing, Young said. But without Travelers Aid, the chapel’s reach is limited. [But from this article it sounds like a bunch of tax dollars are being used illegally at the church or chapel!!!]

Travelers Aid case manager Nancy Tyler, who until last month was the lone case manager working out of the chapel for the Sky Harbor Travelers Aid, has agreed to an indefinite furlough.

There are people who need more than a just a temporary quiet place, Young said.

Tyler’s reports are filled with stories of misunderstandings, of people trying to escape domestic violence, of travelers who wind up stuck in Phoenix without money or means to get to where they need to go.

Sometimes, a little bit of communication makes all the difference, she wrote.

In June, Tyler received a call from a distraught man in Chicago who said his elderly, disabled mother was stuck at a gate in Terminal 2. Her connecting flight had been canceled, and he said no one from the airline had assisted her. Tyler worked with the airline to put her on another flight and helped the man’s mother get to Terminal 4 — to his immense relief, Tyler said.

Young said the chapel’s calming atmosphere is a natural environment for such a program. Tucked behind a currency exchange on the third floor of Terminal 4, it’s easy to miss. Every hour, at 27 minutes after the hour, a PA announcement mentions the chapel. [Did the taxpayers pay for this message????]

“We say it’s probably one of the best-kept secrets at the airport,” Young said. “Even regular travelers aren’t always aware there is a chapel.” [And because of the Arizona Constitution there shouldn't be a religious chapel at at government run airport]

Step through the chapel doors, and gone are footsteps of people rushing to catch flights. Once inside, only a water fountain in the corner of a dim room is audible. A small shelf holds about two dozen religious texts, while a table by the entrance offers pamphlets on everything from alcohol addiction to overcoming loneliness.

At one time, the chapel had 13 chaplains. Now, there are six: four full time and two part time, all volunteers.

“Their role is to rove through the airport, be observant,” Young said. “If someone is showing signs of distress, (they) step up and introduce themselves and ask if there’s any help they can offer.” [I thought per the Homeland Security rules only PASSENGERS were allowed to rove through the airport????]

The chapel receives an estimated 400 to 500 visitors each month, Young said. [So it costs between $14 and $17.50 for each person that visits the chapel] About half are airport employees; the rest travelers. Some come to pray or simply sit in silence. Others ended up there for the Travelers Aid program.

“While the chapel ministry is an important part of what we do, the other side of it is a social service that we have been providing ... for stranded and distressed travelers,” Young said. “This is the program that we feel most needs support from the community.”

The city approved a one-year trial run of the program in June 2006, then extended it for seven years at about $75,000 annually. [So it looks like the city of Phoenix is violating the Arizona Constitution and mixing government and religion at Sky Harbor Airport] The chapel wants to raise enough money to resurrect its Travelers Aid program and rehire Tyler. “Her knowledge is just indispensable,” Young said.

To make a donation, visit www.skyharborchapel.org/travelers-aid.

Who needs back up files when you have the NSA????

Don't think of it as the government flushing the Bill of Rights down the toilet!!!

Think of it as a free file backup service run by government goons!!!!

N.S.A. Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web

The article says the NSA has been getting makers of ICs or integrated circuits to put back doors into their products so the NSA can read or listen to your data before the chip encrypts it.

The article says the NSA is also working with software vendors like Microsoft getting them to put back doors in their software products, again so the NSA can grab the data before the software encrypts it.

Retiring Phoenix City Manager Cavazos able to ‘spike’ his city pension

Retiring Phoenix City Manager Cavazos able to ‘spike’ his city pension

By Craig Harris and Dustin Gardiner The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Sep 4, 2013 10:11 AM

Phoenix City Manager David Cavazos can boost his pension when he retires next month by cashing in City Council-approved perks and roughly $200,000 of unused sick leave, a practice known as “pension spiking” that he was asked to end just six weeks ago, records obtained by The Arizona Republic and 12 News show.

Cavazos and city officials, under his directive, refuse to disclose the total value of his pension package, citing a sealed divorce agreement with his ex-wife, Julie Ann, who will receive part of his pension benefits. A city spokeswoman said Tuesday that that amount will be disclosed when Cavazos retires Oct. 16.

Cavazos declined to be interviewed in depth about his pension, but he did discuss his overall compensation and wrote in a response to Republic Media, which owns 12 News and The Arizona Republic, that his annual pension from the City of Phoenix Employees’ Retirement Systems will be $117,000 to $127,000. He stated that the figure is based “substantially” on the “below market” salary he was paid before getting a raise of nearly 33 percent last year.

He noted that he, like other city employees, made financial concessions to help the city’s budget.

Cavazos would not disclose how much of his additional pension payments his ex-wife would receive under their divorce settlement. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.

The Republic estimates that the total annual city pension payout for Cavazos and his ex-wife together will be at least $220,000, based on a review of his contract, other public records and an interview with Jackie Temple, the city retirement program’s interim administrator.

However, that pension amount could rise depending on how much unused sick leave Cavazos trades in to increase his credited length of city service, one of two key factors in determining the annual amount of a public pension.

Cavazos indicated in a response to media that he plans to trade in sick leave, but he did not disclose how many hours he will exchange to increase his pension.

Cavazos also will be able to significantly increase his final compensation, the other key factor in calculating an annual pension, because of details written into his contract such as being able to cash unused sick leave and the council-approved retroactive pay raise.

Benefits add up

Cavazos will have had a city career of nearly 27 years when he retires next month. Under his contract as city manager, he contributes 2 percent of his pay to the city’s retirement system. Nearly all other employees contribute at least 5 percent of their pay.

His monthly pension payment will be calculated based on the three years his salary was the highest. The values of the following also will be added into the formula to determine his pension:

Up to 60 percent of the roughly 2,194 hours — more than a year — of unused sick leave he accrued before becoming city manager.

All 208 hours of unused vacation pay he accrued.

A $600-a-month car allowance and a $100-a-month cellphone allowance, as well as annual longevity bonuses of $4,000.

Deferred compensation, and about $1,500 a month in extra pay he has received in lieu of not acquiring additional sick-leave hours as city manager.

Cavazos also will take with him a deferred retirement account, to which the city contributes about $35,000 a year or 11 percent of his salary. That money also is factored in to his pension calculation, according to Temple.

Cavazos will become the second consecutive Phoenix city manager to significantly spike his pension under a lucrative City Council-approved benefits and compensation package.

Before retiring in 2009, then-City Manager Frank Fairbanks, Cavazos’ predecessor, boosted his pay through little-known bonuses, by cashing in unused sick leave and vacation, and adding in other perks that elevated his annual pension to $246,813, an amount that was more than his base pay when he worked — and larger than that of any retired U.S. president.

Cavazos, 53, is retiring to become city manager in Santa Ana, Calif., at a base salary of $315,000. His total compensation package, which includes a housing allowance, will exceed a half-million dollars.

“When you pay somebody, if you just look at the cost, it’s a big number. But you have to put that in context of what you get for it,” Cavazos said. “You can never focus on cost. You have to focus on revenue. You have to focus on what it brings.

“If you just focus on cost, you’re going to get the absolute cheapest price. And I don’t think the city of Phoenix wants the cheapest city manager. I think they want the best city manager, and that’s exactly what Santa Ana wanted.”

One of the biggest factors in enhancing the city pension for Cavazos is the nearly 33 percent raise that Mayor Greg Stanton and the City Council approved for him late last year, retroactive to July 2012. That brought Cavazos’ annual base pay to $315,000 — the same amount he will receive in the much smaller Santa Ana.

The council-approved pay raise will significantly increase the amount Cavazos will be paid for his unused sick leave and vacation hours when he leaves, because those calculations will be made at his new hourly rate of $151.44, even though all his sick hours were accrued when Cavazos was paid less.

The Republic calculated Cavazos’ sick-leave payout at $199,401 and his vacation payout at $31,500, based on the city manager’s contract and his most recent sick-leave and vacation balances.

‘Spiking’ assailed

Pension spiking is a contributor to the city’s rapidly escalating pension costs, which have been influenced by poor investment returns during the recession and during the dot-com bust in the early 2000s. The city expects to contribute $127 million to its pension plan this fiscal year on behalf of municipal workers and an additional $129 million to the statewide Public Safety Personnel Retirement System for its police officers and firefighters.

The escalating costs and spiking by top police and fire administrators were such that Stanton and two City Council members in late July asked Cavazos to end the policy that allows pension spiking.

Their concerns were fueled by an Arizona Republic investigation earlier this year that found spiking allowed 10 Phoenix public-safety officials to boost their lump-sum retirement benefits to more than $700,000 each and obtain annual pensions greater than $114,000 each.

Those public-safety officials spiked their pensions by cashing out unused sick leave and vacation. They also calculated into their final compensation things like deferred compensation, payment for emergency shifts, bonuses and allowances for vehicles and cellphones. Those calculations boosted the final salaries used to determine pension benefits.

All public-safety officers are allowed to spike, though the most costly cases have been top managers at the high end of the pay range.

A July memo from Stanton and council members Thelda Williams and Daniel Valenzuela called on Cavazos to find a way to end pension spiking for public-safety employees. The memo took to task “executive level” employees who have abused the pension system and “given a bad name to all employees.”

Though one of Stanton’s campaign planks was to end pension spiking, he has taken no formal legislative action to end a practice that critics say drives up the cost to taxpayers. Stanton did not return repeated calls for this story, but he issued a statement that said city staff members are working on issues raised in his memo.

“Staff will be prepared to report to the council in the fall, as requested,” Stanton said.

Williams was taken aback when informed of the amount of Cavazos’ pension and sick-leave payout based on Republic calculations. She said she thought the council had changed Cavazos’ contract to prevent the pension spiking that occurred when Fairbanks retired in 2009. However, Cavazos got nearly the exact same benefits in his seven-page contract as Fairbanks, except for a $40,000 performance bonus.

“I thought we were pretty clear when we negotiated it, that was not supposed to happen,” she said of pension spiking. “When we negotiated David’s contract, I thought we removed that. Well, if it’s in his contract, it’s our mistake, not his. We should have read the final draft a little closer. I thought that was included in the changes.”

However, Williams said the size of his pension seems like a step in the right direction given that it was smaller than that of Fairbanks. She expects the council will take steps to ensure the next city manager’s contract eliminates pension spiking altogether.

“(The) council has learned a lot in the last few years when it comes to pensions and pension spiking,” Williams said. “I think we’ve learned our lesson. I think pension spiking will be gone. I think that’s for sure. We want to be fair, but we want to also be fair to taxpayers.”

Valenzuela said that although he agrees the practice of pension spiking is a problem citywide, he does not begrudge Cavazos for taking advantage of the provisions in his contract. He said the council approved Cavazos’ contract knowing that the provisions were in there, so it would be out of place for it to criticize him now.

“Personally, I don’t believe that David’s retirement should negatively impact his legacy,” Valenzuela said. “David has done a great job. We all know that. ... I don’t think anyone should be criticized when they finally retire.”

Councilman Sal DiCiccio, an outspoken critic of the city pension system’s cost to taxpayers, said the council needs to take a vote immediately to end pension spiking.

“It’s not just David, it’s everyone,” said DiCiccio, who also approved the pay raise for Cavazos.

The Goldwater Institute, a conservative taxpayer-watchdog group, is suing Phoenix to stop pension spiking for public-safety officers. Its attorney, Jon Riches, called it “unbelievable” that Cavazos now is spiking his pension.

“Not only has he been derelict in his duty to take care of the pension issue for public-safety officers, it appears he has been exploiting a different pension for himself,” Riches said. “It is problematic and irresponsible government.”

Cavazos, however, stopped letting city employees count for their pension benefits unused sick leave accrued after July 1, 2012. His order did not apply to himself because he had already stopped accruing sick leave and traded in those hours for more money.

12 News reporter Brahm Resnik contributed to this article.

----------------------------

Cavazos pension payout

The Arizona Republic projects that David Cavazos’ total annual pension benefits will exceed $220,000 a year when he retires next month. The calculation is based on the roughly $1.2 million in total compensation he is expected to have earned over the three years before his retirement. That sum is divided by three to arrive at his final average salary. That average is multiplied by his nearly 27 years of service, after which a multiplier of 2 percent is applied to arrive at an annual pension figure.

Here’s the projected compensation breakdown:

Top three-years’ salary: $815,000.

Sick-leave cash-out: $199,401.

Sick-leave buyback: $54,000.

Deferred compensation: $89,648.

Vacation cash-out: $31,500.

Vehicle allowance: $21,600.

Longevity bonuses: $12,000.

Cellphone allowance: $3,600.

End shady pension 'spiking' now

End shady pension 'spiking' now

The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Sep 5, 2013 6:49 PM

“My plan will also eliminate abuses like pension spiking.”

— Mayor-elect Greg Stanton, November 2011

[I don't think Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton intended to keep that promise then he intended to keep his promise to repeal the 2 percent sales tax that mostly is used raise money to pay the cops]

The fast-rising cost of public-employee pensions is a big concern of taxpayers. But cost isn’t the biggest concern.

The real gripe? The sense that at contract-negotiation time, no one is in the room representing them. [i.e. represent the TAXPAYERS. I suspect that the mayor and city council members really work for the employees of the city of Phoenix despite being elected by the taxpayers. And when the shovel pork to the employees of Phoenix, they make it a two way street and pork gets shoveled to the mayor, the city council members, and the special interest groups that helped them get elected!!!]

It is the gnawing suspicion that city unions and city executives are motivated by the same belief, which is that maximizing benefits for one group guarantees all their boats will rise on a fast-rushing tide.

That approach is pushing the financial burden of taxpayers to its limits. It also makes even the most egregious of abuses, such as pension spiking, so infuriatingly difficult to end.

Despite the firm, square-jawed declarations of political office-seekers like Stanton, who vowed to end “abuses like pension spiking” during his campaign two years ago, the practice continues. [As I said before I am sure that Stanton lied when he made the pledge to end pension spiking, just like he lied when he said he would repeal the 2 percent sales tax that is used to pay the cops]

The abuse that prompted Stanton to promise its demise two years ago has returned. An outgoing and well-compensated executive is seeing his retirement benefits stuffed to the bursting point.

When Phoenix City Manager Frank Fairbanks retired in 2009, he included unused vacation, leave and sick time, as well as bonuses, car allowances and all manner of fine-print benefits to boost his pension to $246,813 per year.

Public outrage was profound. Reform of the practice rose to the top of the list of 2011 Phoenix election issues. Yet nothing has changed. And now, history is repeating.

City Manager David Cavazos — tabbed in July by Mayor Stanton to (finally) end pension spiking by retiring firefighters and police officers — took a management job in California and retired with his own thoroughly spiked pension, estimated at $220,000.

On Wednesday, Stanton and Vice Mayor Bill Gates announced their intent to eliminate pension spiking in the next city manager’s contract.

We’ll see.

There are serious unintended consequences to this foot-dragging on ending pension spiking.

For one, the public outrage over this executive-level abuse enhances the argument for hiring an outsider as city manager over any internal candidate. Cavazos made the smart financial decision to seek another job as soon as he qualified for a pension. Anyone hired from inside would be in the same position in a few years. Why take the risk?

That risk rises considerably should Stanton and Co. fail to end the pension-spiking practice — not exactly inconceivable considering their recent track record.

Also, it heightens the suspicion that no one is on the public’s side of the negotiating table at public-employee contract time.

The mayor and council have had ample opportunity to address the abuse in the two-plus years it has been a headline-grabbing issue, yet almost nothing has happened. Promising some vague action sometime in the future does not enhance confidence.

Pension spiking needs to end. Today.

WIll Mayor Stanton keep his promise to pension spiking?

Source

WIll Mayor Stanton keep his promise to end food tax pension spiking?

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton announced this week that he won’t support any contract that allows the next city manager to spike his pension.

OK, I admit I was impressed. Briefly.

Then I remembered that Stanton pledged to end all pension spiking during his campaign.

In 2011.

“My plan will also eliminate abuses like pension spiking,” he said at the time, when outlining his proposals for pension reform.

So naturally, he took office and became the swing vote, joining with four other members of the Phoenix City Council (Michael Johnson, Michael Nowakowski, Tom Simplot, and Daniel Valenzuela) to approve employee contracts that allowed pension spiking to continue.

Now the city’s top employee has elevated the fine art of the spike into one spectacular slam dunk. City Manager David Cavazos will depart next month with a pension so laden with padding that it’ll easily plump up past $200,000 – all at the expense of taxpayers who must foot the bill.

Thus comes Stanton’s announcement this week that the next guy who holds the job won’t be able to employ unused sick leave, vacation, bonuses or even his car and cell phone allowances to artificially inflate his pension.

“As I’ve said before, pension spiking undermines the public’s trust that compensation for our employees is fair,” Stanton said this week in a joint press release with Vice Mayor Bill Gates. “It needs to end.”

So, why not end it then, mayor? For everyone. As you promised in 2011.

Not surprisingly, Stanton didn’t return a call so I could ask him that question.

Swell perk, the spike.

In Phoenix, city workers get a generous amount of leave time — 40.5 days a year for entry-level employees — and if they don’t use it all, they’re paid for a portion of it when they retire, all calculated at their final, presumably highest rate of pay. That cash-out, along with deferred compensation, bonuses and other fringe benefits, is then counted as “salary” in order to boost their pensions.

It’s how a guy like former City Manager Frank Fairbanks retired in 2009 with a pension larger than the ones given U.S. presidents.

Last year, in response to public pressure, Phoenix cut back on spiking by its civilian employees. But they can still pump up their pensions with unused vacation pay as well as with sick leave accrued before July 2012.

And the city still allows police and firefighters to spike their pensions despite a state law that forbids it.

Stanton in July called on the city to end spiking when it negotiates next year’s labor contracts for police and firefighters. His call came two months after Republic reporter Craig Harris wrote about high-echelon fire officials who spiked their way toward becoming near-instant millionaires upon retirement.

Ever since Harris’ May story, Councilman Sal DiCiccio has been calling on Stanton to schedule a public discussion and vote to immediately end spiking.

Cue the crickets from the mayor.

Now, with Cavazos’ impending slurp, DiCiccio says he believes he has the council votes to end pension spiking for all employees when their contracts end on June 30. He’s started an online petition (stoppensionspiking.com) and he, Councilwoman Thelda Williams and Councilman Jim Waring are asking Stanton to schedule a vote this month, before negotiations for new employee contracts begin in October.

“The only thing the mayor has to do, he just has to set up a meeting,” DiCiccio told me. “I’m hoping this month that he allows the council to vote.”

((DiCiccio would also like a vote to prevent Cavazos from spiking his pension. That, however, doesn’t seem likely (or legal) given that the right to spike is in his contract – the one approved by DiCiccio and the rest of the City Council in 2009.))

While they’re at it – if, in fact, they get to it – city leaders might also want to reconsider the practice of allowing employees to save up copious amounts of sick and vacation leave in order to score a bonanza upon retirement. Phoenix paid out nearly $8.5 million last year as retiring employees cashed out their unused leave, according to city records. Over the last decade, they’ve collected $102 million.

Then compounded that bonanza by using those payouts to increase the retirement pay they will get for the rest of their lives.

To quote a certain mayor, “pension spiking undermines the public’s trust that compensation for our employees is fair.”

The question, 613 days into his term, is this:

What are you going to do about it mayor?

(Column published Sept. 7, 2013, The Arizona Republic.)

Journalist Facing Prison Over a Link

Placing a "link" or an "A tag" to a document is a Federal crime???

"By trying to criminalize linking, the federal authorities ... are suggesting that to share information online is the same as possessing it or even stealing it"

I guess that is just a cockamamie, convoluted, lame excuse to flush the First Amendment down the toilet by Obama's federal goons.

Source

A Journalist-Agitator Facing Prison Over a Link

By DAVID CARR

Published: September 8, 2013

Barrett Brown makes for a pretty complicated victim. A Dallas-based journalist obsessed with the government’s ties to private security firms, Mr. Brown has been in jail for a year, facing charges that carry a combined penalty of more than 100 years in prison.

Professionally, his career embodies many of the conflicts and contradictions of journalism in the digital era. He has written for The Guardian, Vanity Fair and The Huffington Post, but as with so many of his peers, the line between his journalism and his activism is nonexistent. He has served in the past as a spokesman of sorts for Anonymous, the hacker collective, although some members of the group did not always appreciate his work on its behalf.

In 2007, he co-wrote a well-received book, “Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design and the Easter Bunny,” and over time, he has developed an expertise in the growing alliance between large security firms and the government, arguing that the relationship came at a high cost to privacy.

From all accounts, including his own, Mr. Brown, now 32, is a real piece of work. He was known to call some of his subjects on the phone and harass them. He has been public about his struggles with heroin and tends to see conspiracies everywhere he turns. Oh, and he also threatened an F.B.I. agent and his family by name, on a video, and put it on YouTube, so there’s that.

But that’s not the primary reason Mr. Brown is facing the rest of his life in prison. In 2010, he formed an online collective named Project PM with a mission of investigating documents unearthed by Anonymous and others. If Anonymous and groups like it were the wrecking crew, Mr. Brown and his allies were the people who assembled the pieces of the rubble into meaningful insights.

Project PM first looked at the documents spilled by the hack of HBGary Federal, a security firm, in February 2011 and uncovered a remarkable campaign of coordinated disinformation against advocacy groups, which Mr. Brown wrote about in The Guardian, among other places.

Peter Ludlow, a professor of philosophy at Northwestern and a fan of Mr. Brown’s work, wrote in The Huffington Post that, “Project PM under Brown’s leadership began to slowly untangle the web of connections between the U.S. government, corporations, lobbyists and a shadowy group of private military and infosecurity consultants.”

In December 2011, approximately five million e-mails from Stratfor Global Intelligence, an intelligence contractor, were hacked by Anonymous and posted on WikiLeaks. The files contained revelations about close and perhaps inappropriate ties between government security agencies and private contractors. In a chat room for Project PM, Mr. Brown posted a link to it.

Among the millions of Stratfor files were data containing credit cards and security codes, part of the vast trove of internal company documents. The credit card data was of no interest or use to Mr. Brown, but it was of great interest to the government. In December 2012 he was charged with 12 counts related to identity theft. Over all he faces 17 charges — including three related to the purported threat of the F.B.I. officer and two obstruction of justice counts — that carry a possible sentence of 105 years, and he awaits trial in a jail in Mansfield, Tex.

According to one of the indictments, by linking to the files, Mr. Brown “provided access to data stolen from company Stratfor Global Intelligence to include in excess of 5,000 credit card account numbers, the card holders’ identification information, and the authentication features for the credit cards.”

Because Mr. Brown has been closely aligned with Anonymous and various other online groups, some of whom view sowing mayhem as very much a part of their work, his version of journalism is tougher to pin down and, sometimes, tougher to defend.

But keep in mind that no one has accused Mr. Brown of playing a role in the actual stealing of the data, only of posting a link to the trove of documents.

Journalists from other news organizations link to stolen information frequently. Just last week, The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica collaborated on a significant article about the National Security Agency’s effort to defeat encryption technologies. The article was based on, and linked to, documents that were stolen by Edward J. Snowden, a private contractor working for the government who this summer leaked millions of pages of documents to the reporter Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian along with Barton Gellman of The Washington Post.

By trying to criminalize linking, the federal authorities in the Northern District of Texas — Mr. Brown lives in Dallas — are suggesting that to share information online is the same as possessing it or even stealing it. In the news release announcing the indictment, the United States attorney’s office explained, “By transferring and posting the hyperlink, Brown caused the data to be made available to other persons online, without the knowledge and authorization of Stratfor and the card holders.”

And the magnitude of the charges is confounding. Jeremy Hammond, a Chicago man who pleaded guilty to participating in the actual hacking of Stratfor in the first place, is facing a sentence of 10 years.

Last week, Mr. Brown and his lawyers agreed to an order that allows him to continue to work on articles, but not say anything about his case that is not in the public record.

Speaking by phone on Thursday, Charles Swift, one of his lawyers, spoke carefully.

“Mr. Brown is presumed innocent of the charges against him and in support of the presumption, the defense anticipates challenging both the legal assumptions and the facts that underlie the charges against him,” he said.

Others who are not subject to the order say the aggressive set of charges suggests the government is trying to send a message beyond the specifics of the case.

“The big reason this matters is that he transferred a link, something all of us do every single day, and ended up being charged for it,” said Jennifer Lynch, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group that presses for Internet freedom and privacy. “I think that this administration is trying to prosecute the release of information in any way it can.”

There are other wrinkles in the case. When the F.B.I. tried to serve a warrant on Mr. Brown in March 2012, he was at his mother’s house. The F.B.I. said that his mother tried to conceal his laptop and it charged her with obstruction of justice. (She pleaded guilty in March of this year and is awaiting sentencing.)

The action against his mother enraged Mr. Brown and in September 2012 he made a rambling series of posts to YouTube in which he said he was in withdrawal from heroin addiction. He proceeded to threaten an F.B.I. agent involved in the arrest, saying, “I don’t say I’m going to kill him, but I am going to ruin his life and look into his (expletive) kids ... How do you like them apples?”

The feds did not like them apples. After he was arrested, a judge ruled he was “a danger to the safety of the community and a risk of flight.” In the video, Mr. Brown looks more like a strung-out heroin addict than a threat to anyone, but threats are threats, especially when made against the F.B.I.

“The YouTube video was a mistake, a big one,” said Gregg Housh, a friend of Mr. Brown’s who first introduced him to the activities of Anonymous. “But it is important to remember that the majority of the 105 years he faces are the result of linking to a file. He did not and has not hacked anything, and the link he posted has been posted by many, many other news organizations.”

At a time of high government secrecy with increasing amounts of information deemed classified, other routes to the truth have emerged, many of them digital. News organizations in receipt of leaked documents are increasingly confronting tough decisions about what to publish, and are defending their practices in court and in the court of public opinion, not to mention before an administration determined to aggressively prosecute leakers.

In public statements since his arrest, Mr. Brown has acknowledged that he made some bad choices. But punishment needs to fit the crime and in this instance, much of what has Mr. Brown staring at a century behind bars seems on the right side of the law, beginning with the First Amendment of the Constitution.

E-mail: carr@nytimes.com;

Twitter: @carr2n

Phoenix pension ‘spiking’ rules vary for city employees

Phoenix pension ‘spiking’ rules vary for city employees

By Craig Harris and Dustin Gardiner The Republic | azcentral.com Sat Sep 14, 2013 11:06 PM

While retiring Phoenix City Manager David Cavazos considers converting roughly $200,000 in unused sick leave to enhance his pension, the city is fighting rank-and-file municipal employees in court to keep them from doing the same thing.

Phoenix employee unions filed suit last year to block efforts by Cavazos to limit pension spiking by rank-and-file employees. In that case, the city counters that it is not legally bound to let employees include unused sick time in their pension-benefit calculations. Instead, it says, city management in July 1996 voluntarily chose to allow the practice and can change it at will.

The city’s position in the lawsuit is another example of its inconsistent policies on pension “spiking.” Though the City Council is fighting to limit the practice among the rank and file, it approved numerous perks for Cavazos that allow him to spike his pension.

While the city has restricted the practice with most employees, it continues to allow police officers and firefighters, who pay into a separate pension system, to convert unused sick leave and other benefits at the end of their careers to spike their pensions. The conservative-leaning Goldwater Institute recently filed a lawsuit against Phoenix to stop that practice.

City officials declined to say why they allow spiking for some employees but not others, saying they are reserving comment on pending legal issues. The spiking practice is costly for taxpayers, substantially elevating some highly compensated workers’ annual retirement payments by inflating their end-of-career compensation, a key factor in the formula used to calculate the annual pension benefit. The other key factor is length of service.

The Arizona Republic in a series of stories this year disclosed how a handful of Phoenix employees, including Cavazos and other mostly executive-level public-safety officers, spiked their pensions. The Republic found that 10 public-safety retirees increased their lump-sum retirement benefits to more than $700,000 each, and all will receive annual pensions greater than $114,000 a year.

Based on a review of his contract, other public records and information from the city retirement program, the newspaper projects that Cavazos will elevate his annual pension to at least $220,000 when he retires Oct. 16 and becomes city manager in Santa Ana, Calif. Cavazos, through a city spokeswoman, declined comment for this story and referred pension questions to other city officials.

Sick-leave policies

City policy provides executive and middle managers more lucrative terms than rank-and-file workers for converting sick leave that can be used to spike pensions. For example, rank-and-file workers are limited on the number of hours they can cash in, while executive and middle managers have no limit.

Critics of the practice of compensating workers for unused sick leave say it amounts to double payment because workers already have been paid for those days that they worked.

The average annual pension benefit for a municipal employee in Phoenix is $29,256.

Phoenix residents over the last few years experienced diminished services because of budget cuts and began paying a City Council-approved sales tax on food. Against that backdrop, voters in March overwhelmingly approved a series of modest reforms to the city’s financially troubled pension system. Those reforms, however, did not address pension spiking across the board.

Stung by the most recent revelations about Cavazos’ plans, Mayor Greg Stanton and Vice Mayor Bill Gates last week announced the formation of a committee to eliminate spiking in a “fair, legal and transparent way.” Gates will lead the group of four council members. They are to report their findings by Oct. 4.

Stanton was in China until Saturday on city business, and staff said he would not be available to comment on the panel’s goals. Gates said the council subcommittee will be “very sensitive to doing what we can to treat all employees consistently and fairly.”

He said he is starting the process with an “open mind” about how quickly the council can stop different groups of employees from spiking. A major consideration, Gates said, will be whether reforms can affect not only incoming employees, but also those with accrued leave time and retirees.

“I think we look at everything on that continuum, given the legal and practical considerations and, of course, fairness,” Gates said. “What this is really about is restoring trust in city government.”

Councilman Sal DiCiccio, who has been the most outspoken about ending the practice, said that while he believes that the city has a legal basis to stop some pension spiking right away, there’s not enough council support to make it happen. Instead, DiCiccio said, the council likely will wait until new contracts with its employee unions take effect July 1, 2014.

DiCiccio said his stance is “that nobody, including David (Cavazos), should be allowed to spike.” But he has not pressed the council to try to curtail Cavazos’ pension-spiking benefits, and he suggested there is no political will to do so.

DiCiccio and much of the council supported Cavazos’ contract allowing the spiking when he became city manager in November 2009.

Councilman Tom Simplot, a member of the reform subcommittee, said the city likely would be sued if the council were to strip Cavazos of his pension-spiking benefits.

He said he agrees with Stanton and Gates, who believe that the city can end spiking in the next manager’s contract by not allowing sick or vacation time to count toward his or her pension.

All Phoenix employees belong to one of two pension systems: the statewide Public Safety Personnel Retirement System for police officers and firefighters, or the City of Phoenix Employees’ Retirement Systems for all other municipal employees.

Both systems are significantly underfunded, primarily because of investment losses during the Great Recession and the dot-com bust of the early 2000s. Taxpayer-funded increases in municipal contributions to the pension funds have been needed to fill the funding gaps. Pension spiking has contributed to those financial problems.

The city this fiscal year is projected to spend nearly $124million to fund the city’s pension plan and $129 million to fund its portion of the statewide public-safety pension plan, records show. Employees also make contributions.

The city’s pension costs have increased so rapidly that they have contributed to Phoenix shrinking its Police and Fire departments. The combined $253million in projected city funding is about 42 percent more than what Phoenix spent on the two pension plans in fiscal 2010-11, when it spent a combined $178.4 million.

But Phoenix has done little to rein in public-safety pension costs. Critics blame the political clout of police and fire unions and their willingness to raise and spend large sums to influence City Council races.

Voters overwhelmingly approved a City Council-backed ballot measure in March that requires new municipal workers to split pension-fund contributions 50/50 with the city. It affects only employees hired after July 1.

For each employee hired before the reforms went into effect, the city’s pension contribution is roughly four times more than the employee’s contribution of 5 percent of his or her pay, though the size of the city’s contribution fluctuates based on investment performance.

The reform measure also raised the minimum retirement age for employees by about 31/2 years, on average.

The city did not ask voters to fix pension spiking because city management thought it had dealt with the issue through an administrative rule that prohibited city employees from calculating into their pension benefits any unused sick leave accrued after July 1, 2012. Sick leave accrued before that day still may be used to spike pensions.

Four employees and their unions last year sued the city and the pension system in Maricopa County Superior Court over the administrative rule, saying the city did not have a right to change how pension benefits are calculated without changing the city charter. The case is pending.

Frank Piccioli is president of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Local 2960 and the lead plaintiff in the suit. He said the practice of pension spiking is concentrated among managers, and a few who have abused the process have given all city employees a bad name.

‘A bit hypocritical’

“It is definitely a bit hypocritical of them to come after us when they’re doing the same thing,” said Piccioli, who declined to comment on the specifics of his lawsuit. “It does definitely smack of hypocrisy.”

Piccioli said the City Council now is trying to stop pension spiking because Cavazos and his predecessor, former City Manager Frank Fairbanks, were able to significantly increase their pensions using perks they negotiated with the council. Fairbanks now collects a $246,813 annual pension.

“They’re anti-pension because there’s a few people who took advantage of whatever they negotiated,” Piccioli said. “My people are not spiking. The regular city workers are going to have a modest pension after they retire.”

Records show all city employees have the potential to spike their pensions, but those in upper management have the ability to cash in more benefits like sick leave, deferred compensation, and vehicle and cellphone allowances for pension calculations.

The city said in court records that there is no legal requirement or bylaw within its general-employee pension system that mandates the inclusion of unused sick time in pension-benefit calculations.

“Pay for unused sick time is pay for non-working time and thus, by its very definition, not pay ‘for personal services rendered,’ ” wrote a team of four outside attorneys retained by the city and pension fund.

Toni Maccarone, a city spokeswoman, and Phoenix’s law department were unable to determine how much the city has spent in its pension battle with the unions. She said Friday the city still was researching The Republic’s recent requests.

Another lawsuit

The city took on a second pension fight last month in Maricopa County Superior Court when the Goldwater Institute, a Phoenix-based think tank, sued the city and its officials for allowing police and firefighters to increase the amounts of their pensions by cashing in unused sick leave, vacation and other benefits at the end of their careers.

Goldwater contends that state law prohibits the practice. One of its attorneys noted the inconsistency in the city’s efforts to stop rank-and-file municipal workers from spiking their pensions at the very time when it was permitting public-safety officers to do the same thing.

“It’s very surprising,” said Jon Riches, a Goldwater attorney. “But I’m glad to see Phoenix has the right assessment in that (other) lawsuit. I hope they will come to that same assessment in regards to our lawsuit.”

The city’s attorneys have argued that it cannot immediately end pension spiking for public-safety employees because the benefit is guaranteed under their labor contracts.

Stanton has said he will stop the practice with the police and fire unions’ new contracts, which take effect in summer 2014.

Reach the reporters at craig.harris@ arizonarepublic.com and dustin.gardiner @arizonarepublic.com.

The DEA, CIA, FBI and NSA were reading my email

Of course I was paranoid and wonder was someone else really reading my email.

Of course my first guess was that it was one of my enemies like David Dorn.

And of course the second guess was that it was the government.

Of course now after Edward Snowden released his information that the government was spying on it that I realized that the government probably was involved with illegally reading my emails several times.

I also wondered why on Earth government would waste their time cracking my passwords.

Well again from the recently released information about government spying it turns out that the government wasn't cracking my passwords.

The NSA was simply twisting the arms of Google and Yahoo and getting them to give the government the passwords and email addresses of people the government considers to be criminals like me.

Of course the government's definition of a criminal seems to be any body that "thinks they have Constitutional rights" or anybody that expects the government to obey it's own laws.

And I guess by those definitions I am a criminal because I do think I have "Constitutional Rights" and I do expect the government to obey it's laws.

Of course I an not a criminal by the standards most normal people think of criminals being.

I don't steal stuff. I don't vandalize stuff. I don't destroy property.

Most people are in prison for victimless drug war crimes

After victimless drug war crimes most people are in prison for weapons violations

Victimless drug and gun crimes are why most people are in Federal prisons.

51 percent of federal prison inmates are there for victimless drug war crimes. In the above graph the second highest number of people are in federal prisons for weapons violations. The article didn't give a percent for weapons violations.

Source

Eric Holder is cutting federal drug sentences. That will make a small dent in the U.S. prison population.

By Dylan Matthews, Published: August 12 at 2:50 pm

Populations at federal prisons have grown, but state prisons are the real problem.

Attorney General Eric Holder will announce Monday that the Justice Department will no longer charge nonviolent drug offenders with serious crimes that subject them to long, mandatory minimum sentences in the federal prison system. As my colleague Sari Horwitz explains, Holder “is giving new instructions to federal prosecutors on how they should write their criminal complaints when charging low-level drug offenders, to avoid triggering the mandatory minimum sentences.”

He’s also expected to call for the expanded use of prison alternatives, such as probation or house arrest, for nonviolent offenders and for lower sentences for elderly inmates. And he’ll endorse legislation by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would increase federal judges’ flexibility in sentencing nonviolent drug offenders.

The changes Holder wants will likely make a big difference at the federal level. But that won’t be enough to solve America’s mass incarceration problem.

Focusing on drug offenses is a smart way to go about reducing the federal incarceration rate. According to data in Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?, a new book by UC – Berkeley’s Steven Raphael and UCLA’s Michael Stoll, the most serious charge for 51 percent of federal inmates in 2010 was a drug offense. By comparison, homicide was the most serious charge for only 1 percent, and robbery was the most serious charge against 4 percent.

Tougher drug sentencing accounts for much of the increase in the incarceration rate. “If you go back and decompose what caused growth in the federal prison system since 1984, a large chunk can be explained by drug offenses, around 45 percent,” Raphael says. The other big category accounting for the federal increase is weapons charges, such as the five-year mandatory minimum faced by drug offenders caught with guns. Raphael estimates that that accounts for 18 to 19 percent of the increase.

There’s also been an increase in incarcerations on immigration charges, with the rest of the increase in other areas. But there’s no doubt that the biggest category of crime behind the increase in the federal incarceration rate is drugs. Easing up on drug sentencing would make a big dent.

The states are different

But the federal system isn’t really where the action is. The most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimates find that there are 1,353,198 people incarcerated at the state level and 217,815 incarcerated federally. So about 13.9 percent of U.S. prisoners are in federal institutions; the other 86.1 percent are in state facilities. And most prisoners at the state level are not there for drug crimes.

In 2004, about 20 percent of state-level inmates were incarcerated on drug convictions, Raphael and Stoll find. Compared with the federal population, those incarcerated at the state level are much likelier to have committed violent offenses. In 2004, 14 percent were in prison for homicide, 9 percent for rape or sexual assault, 12 percent for robbery and 8 percent for aggravated assault. In 2011, it was much the same, according to BJS stats on state inmates serving sentences of a year or more. Fifty-three percent of inmates were in prison for violent offenses, 18.3 percent for property crimes, 10.6 percent for “public order” offenses such as drunk driving, weapons possession or vice offenses, and 16.8 percent for drug convictions.

Bjs state breakdown

Raphael and Stoll’s estimates of what’s accounting for the higher incarceration rates suggest that violent crimes are a big part of the state-level story. They find that harsher sentencing for violent offenders explains 48 percent of growth in incarceration rates, compared with about 22 percent attributable to increases in drug sentencing, and 15 percent due to increases in property crime and other sentences.

Then again, most people who go through state criminal justice systems do so on drug offenses. If you look at admission rates, rather than incarceration rates, at the state level, drugs become a much bigger part of the picture. For admissions, Raphael and Stoll find “relatively modest increases for violent crimes and property crimes and pronounced increases for drug offenses, parole violations, and other less serious crime.” And while higher admissions for less serious crimes with shorter sentences don’t affect the incarceration rate as much as increases in sentencing for serious crimes, they do dramatically affect the lives of those admitted, who have to find work as ex-offenders and live with the sundry restrictions states impose upon those who’ve served time.

It’s not hopeless

Holder is taking a fairly plausible approach to reducing the U.S. incarceration rate at the level where he can effect it. But that’s not the level that matters most, and if we were to get serious about reducing the state-level incarceration and admissions rates, we need to talk not just about reducing sentences for drug crimes but also about reducing prison admissions for drug offenses, and perhaps also lowering sentences for property crime and even violent offenses, particularly robbery.

There has been growing enthusiasm for reforming state sentencing laws, even backed by many conservatives. The American Legislative Exchange Council has joined the cause, creating model legislation for loosening state mandatory minimum laws. Especially if it’s not just limited to drug offenses, that kind of reform could greatly reduce the state incarceration rate.

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