Public safety pay generous

I would like to respond to Len Champion’s June 27 letter. He says it is nobody’s business what firemen get paid. That’s like giving the fox a blank check to guard the henhouse. As a taxpayer who is expected to pay the bill, I have every right to know what firemen are paid.

What Champion doesn’t want you to know is that a fireman can make up to $100,000 a year, with nearly as generous a pension. The best thing that Mayor David Condon can do is publish in the paper the complete wage and retirement packages for the police and fire departments so all can see what they make. While the average worker’s pay has been stagnant for the past 20 years, police and fire have had automatic increases to their pay and retirement packages.

The people of San Diego realized that if they had to keep paying for bloated police and fire pensions, they would have to declare bankruptcy. They were able to restructure the police and fire plans to make them more reasonable. And we need to do the same thing. In the town where I grew up, we had a volunteer fire department.

Rick Johnson

Spokane