City made good deal

Published 11:52 am Friday, October 16, 2015

The Baker City Council made a good deal this week with retiring City Manager Mike Kee.

That it’s also a good deal for Kee doesn’t change this.

On Tuesday night the Council agreed to rehire Kee, on a six-month contract, on Nov. 1 after he officially retires.

This should give councilors sufficient time to recruit Kee’s replacement, a process Kee, who has been city manager since September 2010, will help with.

Moreover, because Kee will be officially retired, the city will save about $12,000 in contributions to Kee’s retirement account under Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) during the six-month contract.

If councilors had rejected Kee’s proposal, he could have simply retired Nov. 1, leaving the city to hire an interim manager.

But the transition is likely to be much smoother with Kee staying on until the Council has picked his successor.

Such a deal is attractive for public employees because they can collect both a PERS check and a paycheck. This practice, known as “double-dipping” is common in Oregon – more than 10,000 people take advantage of it every year – and one of many examples of PERS’ ludicrously generous benefits.

In this case, though, the taxpayers whose labors keep the PERS troughs full actually catch a bit of a break. At least those in Baker City do, since the city no longer has to put money in Kee’s account after he retires.

Ultimately we’d prefer the Legislature do away with double-dipping. If public employees want to retire – and many can afford to do so with a comfortable pension in their 50s, a decade or more before most people in the private sector retire – then they should take their pension and not continue to draw a public paycheck.

But double-dipping is allowed.

And under the circumstances, Baker City is better off keeping Kee on the payroll, and saving $12,000 on PERS contributions, while the City Council searches for a new manager.