Looking for honest work? A giant wave of baby boomers will be exiting state government jobs by the end of the decade.
Personnel Director Jeff Wells estimates 30 percent of Colorado’s 31,000 classified employees will be eligible to retire by then, and he expects the vast majority will do so. “We’re planning for it, and we’re ready,” he said with earnest confidence.
And why not? The supply of qualified workers for state jobs has remained steady, in part because the recent recession left many people in the private sector unemployed.
The exodus is due in part to age, concerns about state budget problems and a generous benefits package that allows workers to purchase credits that boost their retirement benefits. Some state workers will be making more in retirement than they’re earning now in active pay. Between 2001 and 2003, the credit purchase program was so lucrative that some employees mortgaged their homes to get the cash to pay for them, says Jo Romero, president of the Colorado Federation of Public Employees. The flood of retirees put such a strain on the Public Employees Retirement System that PERA raised the cost of the service credits.
With boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, there’s no getting around it – state retirements will only grow for the next 18 years.
Job candidates who are thinking of the long-term prospects will be interested to see what voters decide nextNovember. The budget-rescue package will have a lot of impact on the future shape of state government.
Cleaning up the highways
Colorado Department of Transportation workers are getting sprayed so often with urine or other human waste dumped from moving vehicles that some are getting inoculated with hepatitis shots.
In hopes of curtailing the danger, Gov. Bill Owens recently signed legislation that will raise the fine for such dumping from a minimum of $15 to a flat $500 per conviction.
A prudent move to be sure, but legislative staffers who estimate state revenues aren’t terribly optimistic about nabbing the culprits. They figure the state will raise just $5,000 a year – 10 tickets annually – “given the infrequency of catching someone in the act of disposing human waste along a state highway,” according to the bill’s fiscal note.
CDOT lobbyist Herman Stockinger said he and executive director Tom Norton learned of the seriousness of the problem last summer when they traveled the state, meeting with maintenance workers. In the Loveland area, workers find 30 to 40 bottles a week. (Never mind all the dirty diapers.)
In some regions, CDOT has provided fully enclosed mowers to protect workers from getting sprayed.
The problem is not a lack of rest stops. Stockinger says it’s more likely a paucity of good manners. Even at the rest stops, waste can be found strewn on the ground rather than dumped in the trash cans, he said.
Exporting politics
Three former Republican state representatives recently traveled to Indonesia to advise politicians there on how to campaign for office.
Rob Fairbank, Glenn Scott and Tim Fritz, members of the International Republican Institute, suggested Indonesian candidates blend the old with the high tech when courting voters. Fairbank advised candidates to post campaign posters around village squares and campaign over cellphones using text messaging.
In a country like Indonesia, going door to door isn’t a good idea unless you want to risk getting shot, says Fairbank. And the postal system is unreliable. So mailing campaign literature is not an option and neither is a mail-in ballot. “It might get delivered or not,” Fairbank said.
He says that campaigning through text messaging hasn’t come to the United States, but it’s become a powerful tool in Europe and elsewhere. “Everybody’s got a cellphone,” he said. Still, it must cost a cool bundle to mobilize the masses via text messaging.
Julia C. Martinez (jmartinez@denverpost.com ) is a member of The Denver Post editorial board.
