League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Orange County, CA June 6, 2006 Election
	Cathryn DeYoung Answers Questions Candidate for Supervisor; County of Orange; Supervisorial District 5

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Questions & Answers

1. What is your position regarding the extension of Measure M? Please explain your position.

Our quality of life in Orange County depends on having an efficient transportation system. The extension of Measure M will provide the funding to ensure that we will have necessary transportation improvements without any increase in taxes, and I fully support it.

I serve on the Committee that provided input to select the projects for the renewed Measure M. Renewal of Measure M will give Orange County more than 11 billion dollars in transportation improvements throughout Orange County.

The extension of Measure M will also protect our overall quality of life by ensuring that urban runoff from freeways will be addressed as part of the package of future transportation funding. The Measure M extension includes funding for senior transportation, traffic signal synchronization, and public transportation needs. Cities will receive funding to deal with road improvements and other local priorities.

The original Measure M brought Orange County over 4 billion dollars in much needed transportation improvements.

I served as a Director of the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) and we were able to use these dollars to make improvements on the major Orange County freeways and our local streets and roads as a result of funding received from the original Measure M. In fact, Measure M has been the main funding source of our transportation improvements over the past 10 years. We have received little funding from the Federal government and State legislature for needed transportation improvements in Orange County.

As a Board Member of the OCTA, I authored the South Orange County Major Investment Study which will plan for major transportation improvements on the I-5 Freeway from Lake Forest through San Clemente and on our local streets and roads. In essence the South County Major Investment Study will provide the blueprint for all future transportation improvements in South County. The funding for these improvements will come from the extension of Measure M.

Orange County has not received our fair share of transportation funds at both the State and Federal level. In fact, each year the State legislature has literally robbed us of our transportation money and has taken our transportation money and used it to fix their budget deficit year after year. This is the first year that the State will actually allocate funding for transportation from the gasoline sales tax! However, the amount of transportation funding that Orange County will receive is paltry in comparison to the improvements that are needed.

Moreover, Orange County does not receive its fair share of transportation dollars at the Federal level. In the most recent Federal Highway Transportation Bill, TEA-LU, Orange County received only 91 million of earmarked transportation improvement funds in this $257 billion dollar bill! Funding for transportation at the Federal level has been relatively non-existent and when projects are designated for funding in Orange County, those projects may not be what Orange County residents desire.

Witness the $15 million dollars in Federal funding for a proposed tunnel from Riverside to Orange County. This highly controversial tunnel will cost an estimated $6 to $8 billion dollars to build, would create environmental havoc in the surrounding National Forest, and would dump an estimated 120,000 cars per day from Riverside into South Orange County. In essence, we would be spending enormous sums of money to make our transportation congestion worse!

We simply cannot allow our future transportation projects to be subject to the whims of Congress. The Measure M Extension committee has gone through a thorough process and has designated top priority projects in Orange County that need transportation funding. The tunnel is not one of those projects.

Increasing traffic congestion is the number one enemy of our quality of life in South County. Measure M must be extended so that our critical transportation needs will be funded and Orange County can continue to be an extraordinary place to live, work, and raise a family.

2. What is your position on the expansion of toll roads in Orange County? Please explain your position.

Increasing traffic congestion threatens the quality of life of all Orange County residents, particularly those in South County. Wouldn't we rather spend their evenings at home having dinner with the family than sit in traffic gridlock? Government has a responsibility to deal with the problem and to do it in a way that is financially responsible and sensitive to the environment. It is clearly time to exercise proactive leadership in the debate over the proposed extension of the 241 Toll road.

On Thursday January 12, 2006 the Transportation Corridor Agency (TCA) held a key public meeting in the City of Mission Viejo and received public input on the proposed extension of the 241 toll road from Oso Parkway to Basilone Road in San Clemente.

At that meeting, I expressed to the TCA Board that I support the extension of the 241 toll road and that after years of study the time has come to move forward with this project. The 241 extension will help alleviate traffic along the I-5 in South County and provide residents with another travel option (or evacuation route) other than using the I-5. I believe, however that it is important for the TCA Board to address some serious concerns that have been raised by prominent and responsible environmental organizations. I believe these concerns can be addressed while the project moves forward. I offered the following suggestions to the Board as they proceed with this project.

First, I believe that measures must be taken to ensure that the agency has done everything feasible to minimize water runoff contamination to the down stream communities and beaches. It is vitally important to make sure that the necessary steps to alleviate impacts to our beaches have been fully addressed. Since the environmental community has expressed concerns on this issue, it would be helpful to retain an independent expert to review the TCA's water quality plan to determine whether all the necessary steps have indeed been taken. This will assure the community that every possible effort has been made to mitigate any negative impacts of the proposed extension on the water quality at our beautiful beaches.

Second, we must make certain that Trestles Beach remains a world class surfing site. There is a debate between the Surfriders Foundation and TCA as to whether the proposed extension will impact the surf break at Trestles. The TCA has hired an expert who concludes that the 241 extension project will not adversely impact Trestles Beach, particularly in the formation of the waves, which makes this such a premier surfing site, and I have reviewed this document. The Surfriders Foundation and others disagree with the TCA expert's conclusion.

I suggested to the TCA Board that the issue deserves special consideration and proposed that the TCA hire an independent engineering firm, mutually agreed upon by both the TCA and the Surfriders Foundation, to analyze whether there will or will not be an impact on the surf break at Trestles Beach. If the study concludes that the 241 extension over the adjacent creek bed would cause a negative impact on the surf break, then the engineering firm would be tasked to provide recommendations to protect the surf break, either by redesign of the road section over the creek or by other mitigation measures. If the independent expert determines that there is no impact, then the surfing community and the residents of South Orange County will be provided this additional assurance.

Yes, this would be going above and beyond what is required in the standard EIR process, however, I believe the significance of preserving Trestles Beach deserves this additional level of scrutiny. Both sides would benefit from an objective independent analysis of this issue and it is the right thing to do.

At the end of the day, addressing these environmental concerns is not only good policy, it will ultimately improve the chances of the TCA winning approval of the project at the Coastal Commission and other levels of review. The extension of the 241 toll road is a very important part of a countywide transportation strategy to reduce traffic congestion and protect the quality of life of our residents. Protecting our land, water quality, and beaches is not simply an option--it is a necessity.

Professionally addressing environmental concerns is good policy. In the delicate balance between serving the needs of residents and protecting our natural assets, providing a legitimate opportunity for an honest exchange of seemingly contradictorily information, will ultimately improve the probability of achieving final approval of the critical "last miles" of the toll road extension.

3. What do you think the supervisors should do to resolve the issue of the county's underfunded pension liabilities and retirement health benefits?

Last June, the Orange County Grand Jury signed a report entitled Another County Crisis: Pensions, Health Care, And Other Benefits. Earlier last year, an independent consultant hired by the Orange County Employees Retirement System reported that the County pension fund was $2.3 billion in the red + more than double previous estimates. This unfunded liability will require an additional $110 million per year in contributions to the pension fund. Coupled with the $1.3 billion shortfall in health care liabilities and $800 million bankruptcy payoff, the County of Orange has found itself with a $4.4 billion unfunded liability.

How in the world were the financial lessons that caused the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of our nation only 10 short years ago forgotten so quickly? "Under the California Constitution the BOS (Board of Supervisors) is responsible for setting terms and conditions of employment for County employees, including salaries and benefits." According to the Grand Jury report, "It appears the current BOS is repeating the pattern of granting generous benefits + this in light of tight county budgets and the residual effects of the bankruptcy 10 years ago."

Currently Orange County has about 17,600 employees, with salaries, benefits, and workers' compensation in the approximate amount of $1.4 billion, representing almost 31% of the County's $4.5 billion budget.

The two prominent formulas used to determine the retirement benefits awarded to County employees upon retirement are commonly referred as 2.7% at 55 and 3% at 50. These formulas refer to the percentage of the retiree's highest "final earnings", which is multiplied by the retiree's number of years of service to provide the value of the retiree's annual retirement package. This retirement benefit would be available to a retiree at his or her retirement age, e.g. either 55 or 50 years of age predicated on the employee's approved retirement plan.

County retirees are assigned a "Tier" status based on their hire date. Tier I employees were hired prior to September 21, 1979 and Tier II employees were hired after September 21, 1979. Tier II status specifies whether the highest "final earnings" are averaged over the final three years of employment and Tier I "final earnings" are based on the highest single year compensation. Tier I status provides the greatest opportunity to a practice known as earnings "spiking" (the manipulation of benefits to result in the peaking of earnings in the last year of employment).

What does "final earnings" really mean in terms of retirement pay? The term "final earnings" is a compilation of all "compensation earnable" as defined by a court finding known as the "Ventura Decision". Approximately 20 categories of special pay are permitted to be added to the retiree's base salary, to form the retiree's "final earnings". In many instances, the "final earnings" basis from which the retirement package is computed is larger than the employee's annual salary prior to retirement. The Ventura Decision compensation list includes such items as: bilingual pay; over time; uniform allowances; confined space pay; additional compensation for scheduled meal period; and/or paramedic pay. Why did the Ventura Court decide that retirement pay should reflect these specialty allowances is of great debate, but the bottom line is that they are legally included in the final earnings computation and serve to inflate the retiree's "final earnings" calculation.

T he Orange County Grand Jury analyzed the difference between a County employee retiring under both of the County's plans (3% at 50 and the 2.7% at 55 plans) and a private industry employee retiring under social security reaching the following conclusions. Under the assumptions that both the private industry employee and the County employee earned the same annual compensation through their careers and; that they both retired at age 50 with 30 years of employment; and that both employees started with an annual base of $14,100, and that both completed their employment service with an annual base of $87,900 thirty years later + the Grand Jury determined that under the 3% at 50 plan, the County employee would have accumulated more than $1,260,000 before this private sector employee received a dime of social security retirement pay 16 years later! Under the 2.7% at 55 plan, using the same comparisons, the Grand Jury determined that the County employee would have accumulated "ONLY" $830,000 more than the private sector retiree in the 10-year period before collecting social security.

We can't solve the problem by moving Orange County's employees out of the Orange County Employees Retirement System (OCERS) and putting them in the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) as is being discussed at certain levels in county government. Transferring the pension problem to another provider simply defers the inevitable. Such a move would result in the following: deferring current financial obligations for future generations to resolve; dilution of the authority to manage the retirement account; and the acceptance of higher risks in managing the funds.

It is easy to understand how we arrived in our current pension dilemma. It is really simpler to defer problems than to face them head-on. It is much more politically digestible to promise a big payout in the future than it is to reconcile the complexities of compensation/benefit resolution in the near term. Failure to face compensation issues responsibly, deferring these enormous financial decisions, and saddling future generations with our obligations will catch up with us eventually. The pension fiasco in the San Diego and other municipalities are a harbinger for those who can't solve current problems in the present. Clearly responsible pension management is an issue of requiring a long-term perspective in creating, funding, and prudently managing pension benefits.

I am running for the 5th District Supervisor position because I believe I have the experience to make a difference. As Mayor of Laguna Niguel, I authored our city's pension policy which guarantees that our pension obligations will be fully funded. That is the kind of responsible leadership I wish to bring to the Board of Supervisors.

I am seeking your support for my candidacy. Please contact my campaign office (949) 276-6901 or visit us at 31105 Rancho Viejo Road, San Juan Capistrano, CA.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League. 

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: May 12, 2006 18:08
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