Sonoma County gets 21 applicants for new 7-member pension reform committee

Twenty-one people are vying for seven spots on Sonoma County’s advisory panel on pension reform, a new committee that will wade into one of the region’s most difficult public policy challenges when it begins meeting later this year.

Among those who applied by Monday’s deadline were five members of the last, temporary pension panel and seven with some tie to organized labor.

The remaining applicants included a “pretty good mix” of people from other backgrounds, including retirees, said Nikolas Klein, an administrative analyst in the County Administrator’s Office.

Once its work gets under way, the committee will seek to help the county reduce its rising employee pension costs, estimated this year at more than $107 million.

Officials also are hoping to lower the county retirement system’s unfunded liabilities of roughly $750 million, a figure that includes long-term county obligations to the retirement fund as well as taxpayer debt from past pension bonds.

The citizens’ committee is charged with analyzing a comprehensive county report on the retirement system and presenting annual updates to the Board of Supervisors, which will include discussion of reform strategies from elsewhere that could be applicable in Sonoma County, among other duties.

Supervisors David Rabbitt and Shirlee Zane are expected to interview applicants late next month before recommending nominees to the full board for final approval in late July, Klein said.

“Twenty-one, for me, when we’re trying to get seven, is a pretty good number,” Klein said. “From the caliber of the applications that I read through, I would imagine (supervisors) won’t have any trouble finding seven good folks. There’s some pretty stellar individuals on there.”

Creation of the permanent citizens’ pension committee comes nearly one year after the previous group finished its work. Supervisors in April voted to create the new, ongoing panel - and, unlike last time, they agreed to allow beneficiaries of the county retirement system to apply for committee membership, opening the door for county employees to join.

Joel Evans-Fudem, president of the Sonoma County chapter of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the largest union representing county workers, said he wants supervisors to appoint committee members who are fiscally responsible but also attuned to the needs of current employees and retirees.

“While I don’t like the idea of the independent citizens’ committee in the first place, I do think that something beneficial could come out of it,” Evans-Fudem said. “I hope they pick non-ideological people.”

One of the previous committee members who applied this time around was Jack Atkin, the former president of the Sonoma County Taxpayers Association. Atkin said he threw his name in the hat again because he felt like “it was productive work.”

“It’s something (that) I think is the single most critical issue facing the county,” Atkin said.

“There’d be a lot of money available, including money for salary increases that the employees want, if the pension cost problem simply were to be gotten under control.”

The previous committee’s report last summer cast doubt on the county’s pension cost projections and warned that officials had not done enough to curb costs.

It was met with some frustration from supervisors, including Rabbitt, who sits on the board of the county retirement system and felt it did not sufficiently identify reforms that were within the county’s existing authority.

“No one seemed to like it very much except the committee themselves,” Evans-Fudem said.

This time around, Rabbitt said he wants to assemble as broad a group as possible on the new committee.

“I’d like to have a very diverse group of people that are going to have different opinions that can battle it out amongst one another and try to convince one another why they’re right and go from there,” he said. “Ultimately, the more opinions that are expressed, the better off we’re going to be.”

You can reach Staff Writer J.D. Morris at 707-521-5337 or jd.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @thejdmorris.