{"id":20291,"date":"2015-04-08T13:02:39","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T20:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=20291"},"modified":"2015-04-08T13:02:39","modified_gmt":"2015-04-08T20:02:39","slug":"nevada-local-government-employees-are-not-underpaid-according-to-national-scholars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/nevada-local-government-employees-are-not-underpaid-according-to-national-scholars\/","title":{"rendered":"Nevada local government employees are not underpaid, according to national scholars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Chantal-Lovell1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-20293 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Chantal-Lovell1.jpg\" alt=\"Chantal Lovell\" width=\"134\" height=\"181\" \/><\/a>(Chantal Lovell of NPRI)<\/em> &#8211;\u00a0Las Vegas \u2014 A study being distributed by SEIU of Nevada \u2014 claiming that the state\u2019s local-government employees receive less compensation than comparable private-sector workers \u2014 is fatally flawed, say authors of a major national state-by-state ranking of public employee pay.<\/p>\n<p>The SEIU-backed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npri.org\/track\/trackurl.asp?q=itytqr6i7uip\" target=\"_blank\">white paper<\/a> is written by Rutgers Associate Prof. Jeffrey Keefe and argues that Nevada\u2019s local-government employees receive lower combined salaries and fringe benefits than do comparable private-sector workers. But the Keefe study, say Andrew G. Biggs and Jason Richwine \u2014 themselves authors of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npri.org\/track\/trackurl.asp?q=genqcpintasp\" target=\"_blank\">comprehensive look at public-employee compensation<\/a> \u2014 \u201cis fatally flawed.\u201d Biggs is also the author of the Nevada Policy Research Institute\u2019s 2001 study, \u201cReforming Nevada&#8217;s Public Employees Pension Plan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Biggs and Richwine say the important flaws in the study include:<\/p>\n<p><i>Wage results are not replicable.<\/i><\/p>\n<ul>Keefe claims that Nevada local government employees receive significantly lower wages than similar private sector workers. But we are unable to replicate Keefe\u2019s figures. Data from the Current Population Survey show that, after controlling for education, experience and other factors that affect pay, Nevada local government employees receive comparable salaries to private sector employees. Analysis using the American Community Survey shows a public employee wage premium.<\/ul>\n<p><em>Benefits data are not specific to Nevada<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>Even though he is purportedly studying Nevada, Keefe\u2019s benefits data are actually averages for Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Using regional averages is acceptable for minor benefit categories or for the private sector, where there is less cross-state variation. But large public-sector benefits such as pensions and health insurance can differ dramatically among states. For these benefits, it is necessary to use Nevada-specific data. Keefe\u2019s regional average benefit numbers are simply not relevant to Nevada.<\/ul>\n<ul>And even Keefe\u2019s regional comparison is wrong. It is well-known among researchers that the Employer Cost for Employee Compensation (ECEC) data set used by Keefe has two major drawbacks:<\/ul>\n<p><em>Pension compensation is undervalued.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>The ECEC values pension compensation based on the government\u2019s contribution to the fund. But what states contribute in a given year has literally nothing to do with what pension benefits will be owed. The proper valuation of pension benefits comes from the risk-adjusted \u201cnormal cost\u201d of the pension, meaning the present value of benefits accrued by workers each year, less any employee contributions.<\/ul>\n<p><em>Retiree health benefits are omitted.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>Most Nevada local employees become eligible for some form of retiree health coverage, but the ECEC data \u2014 and, hence, Keefe\u2019s study \u2014 omit retiree health costs entirely. Governments are required to report the value of retiree health benefits accruing to current employees. For example, the City of Reno\u2019s actuarial valuation shows that future retiree health benefits accruing to city employees in 2013 were worth an additional 11.5% of wages.\u00a0By contrast, retiree health benefits in the private sector typically amount to less than 1% of wages.<\/ul>\n<p>For all of the above reasons, Biggs and Richwine state, the Keefe study \u201cis not a useful analysis of local government compensation in Nevada.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>NPRI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that produces and shares ideas and information that empowers people. \u00a0For more information, please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.NPRI.org\" target=\"_blank\">www.NPRI.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Chantal Lovell of NPRI) &#8211;\u00a0Las Vegas \u2014 A study being distributed by SEIU of Nevada \u2014 claiming that the state\u2019s local-government employees receive less compensation than comparable private-sector workers \u2014 is fatally flawed, say authors of a major national state-by-state ranking of public employee pay. The SEIU-backed white paper is written by Rutgers Associate Prof. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20291"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20291"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20294,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20291\/revisions\/20294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}