Sal
DiCiccio called 'hypocritical' on Phoenix pension
Original Post:Dustin Gardiner, The Republic | azcentral.com
Last elected post:
Phoenix city councilman.
Annual pension:
$8,410.
Date payments started:
October 2003.
Years of elected
service: 6.1.
Current title: Phoenix city
councilman (DiCiccio returned to elected office after he began drawing a
pension for his earlier council terms)
When it comes to pension reform, critics say
Phoenix Councilman Sal DiCiccio seems to be living by the mantra, "Do as I
say, not as I do."
For the better part of five years, DiCiccio
has been on a mission to stop the excesses and soaring costs of the city's
employee-pension system. It's an issue he seized this fall as voters consider
Proposition 487, a ballot initiative that would dismantle the pension plan for
new hires. He has been the public face of the pro-reform effort.
But labor
union leaders have accused DiCiccio of hypocrisy given that he's receiving an
$8,410 pension from a previous term on the council and $10,500 in
deferred compensation per year while earning a $61,600 salary for doing the
same City Council job.
DiCiccio said he has gone out of his way to
return his pension money. Instead of writing a check to the city for his
pension amount, he said he pays it back by declining other benefits available
to city leaders, including a cellphone and car allowance.
He emphasized that he tried to suspend his
pension payments, but state officials told him the law wouldn't allow it.
The pension benefit comes from DiCiccio's
council stint from January 1994 to February 2000. Since returning to elected
office in 2009, records show he has declined more than $46,000 in city perks
and once wrote a $3,000 check to the city.
Still, opponents assert DiCiccio's explanation
doesn't square with his message of fiscal responsibility.
They point out he is talking about different
pots of money, and the city still has to make payments to a state-pension
system for his position. Ultimately, critics contend, he is "double
dipping" by pocketing a pension and deferred compensation for a job for
which he earns a salary.
"There's a tremendous irony when somebody
positions themselves as the tip of the spear when it comes to pension reform
and at the same time is receiving a pension for doing a part-time political
job," said David Leibowitz, a spokesman for the firefighter union opposing
Proposition 487. "I mean, how many times do we have to pay this guy to be
a city councilman?"
DiCiccio said the focus on his pension
distracts from the real issue Prop. 487 would address: Phoenix's unsustainable
pension obligations. The city's costs for the pensions of civilian workers
jumped to $129 million this year, up from $27.8 million in fiscal 2002.
"That's a tactic they've used to
personally attack and not talk about the initiative," he said. "I've
paid back my pension. Period."
Public records from the Arizona Elected
Officials' Retirement Plan show DiCiccio applied for early retirement in
September 2003, allowing him to start drawing a lifetime pension benefit at age
45. The size of his pension has increased over time with cost-of-living
adjustments.
In hindsight, DiCiccio said he "would
absolutely never have" taken early retirement had he known of the looming
pension crisis.
DiCiccio twice wrote to state pension
officials, asking to have his payments suspended while he is in office. They
rejected his requests. He said he also made multiple phone calls to the state,
advocating for a suspension.
When that didn't work, DiCiccio started
declining other city benefits.
But opponents said that if DiCiccio were to truly
practice what he advocates, he would write a check to the city for his pension
payment, decline deferred compensation and not accept a cellphone or car
allowance.
Rather than simply writing a check to the city
for his pension amount, DiCiccio said he declined certain allowances for tax
reasons. He elaborated: Writing a check would make him pay taxes twice: once
for the income tax on his pension, and again for taxes on the car and cellphone
allowances he would otherwise collect from the city.
Cathy Gleason, the city's retired budget
director and a co-chair of the No on 487 campaign, said DiCiccio is being
especially hypocritical on deferred compensation, which is similar to
401(k)-type retirement plans in the private sector. DiCiccio receives the
benefit despite labeling it a "second retirement" plan and advocating
its removal for all city workers with pensions.
"He hasn't really given it back,"
she said. "He's still getting more compensation than the average city
employee, and they have to show up for 40 hours a week."
Records from the elected-officials pension
plan show DiCiccio has received more than $77,000 in payments since retiring in
2003. He said he has paid back the portion of those payments that he has
received since returning to the council.
However, DiCiccio has previously claimed he
asked the city to stop all of his deferred-compensation payments. Public
records show he stopped accepting the second retirement benefit for a few
years, but had the $761 monthly payments reinstated in December 2012. More AZ Central
When asked about the deferred compensation payments, DiCiccio said he's taking the money instead of accruing more pension benefits. He added, "At some point, you're allowed to have some benefits
