A state appeals court this week overturned a lower court ruling, paving the way for a retired fire chief in the East Bay to recoup close to $1.5 million stripped from his pension by an organization that provides retirement benefits for county employees.
The Contra Costa County Employees’ Retirement Association board had alleged that former Moraga-Orinda Fire District Chief Peter Nowicki improperly calculated his pension prior to his retirement from the district. It ordered him to repay more than a half million dollars in agency overpayments and lowered his monthly pension by nearly $6,000.
“Because we conclude the board’s decision to reduce Nowicki’s retirement allowance was an abuse of discretion, we shall reverse the judgment,” the state’s First District Court of Appeal said in its decision Tuesday.
Nowicki retired from MOFD in 2008 with a $20,448 monthly pension, which Contra Costa County officials decried as outrageous since the pension amount exceeded the chief’s salary. The case made national news, with Nowicki becoming somewhat of a poster child for pension abuse.
In 2014, the CCCERA board sent Nowicki a letter informing him that it had been reviewing past incidents of unusual compensation increases at the end of employment to determine if pension spiking had occurred “through members’ receipt of pay items that were not earned as part of their regularly recurring employment compensation during their careers.”
After a 2015 hearing, CCCERA determined that Nowicki had improperly calculated his pension, and the agency lowered his pension to $14,668 per month and demanded that Nowicki return $585,000 in overpayments.
The chief sued the retirement board and in 2020 a Contra Costa County Superior Court judge affirmed the action of the CCCERA board to strip Nowicki of part of his pension. Nowicki appealed the Superior Court decision, and a three-judge panel heard his appeal in San Francisco in June.
All along, Nowicki has maintained that he did nothing wrong, and said when calculating his pension that he followed the retirement association’s rules, which allowed the chief to sell back vacation leave, administrative leave and holiday pay to count toward his retirement payout.
Harvey Leiderman, fiduciary attorney for CCCERA, disagreed.
“We have the authority to correct errors if the member improperly caused the benefit to be increased or overstated at the time of retirement,” Leiderman said in 2015. “There is no question the member actively engineered these retroactive benefits.”
Though the appellate court stated that “Nowicki’s pre-retirement efforts to increase his compensation earnable in the period before his retirement, which allowed him to maximize his pension, epitomize pension spiking,” it determined that way the chief calculated his pension “fell in conformity with the spirit of the law.”
Nowicki said he felt vindicated by the appellate court decision.
“It’s unfortunate that a retiree has to waste six years of their life embroiled in the legal system just to protect the benefits they earned over three decades of dedicated work,” Nowicki said. “The Contra Costa Retirement Board needs to realize that fruitless witch hunts have real life consequences that affect people’s lives.”
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Neither Leiderman nor Scott Gordon, CCCERA board chair, responded to a request for comment.
“After years of litigation, our client Pete Nowicki got the result he was entitled to: reversal of an unjust and legally incorrect decision by the Contra Costa County Employees’ Retirement Association stripping him of his hard earned retirement,” said Steve Kaiser, Nowicki’s lawyer. ”We at Messing Adam & Jasmine are delighted that the First District Court of Appeal corrected this injustice in a way that is of immense value not just to our client, but hopefully to others who retired before (new regulations) came into effect in 2013.”
This is such a typical CA situation. Incumbents and government employees enrich themselves while the state is completely hollowed out for the middle class. The poor guy had to live on a mere 14k a month in retirement, wow. He must have been begging in the streets of Orinda.
As a legal matter he might be correct, I wouldn’t know.but it is just grotesque that that level of pension spiking is even possible. Retired fire chiefs (and police, etc) can then go on and pick up another job, do some consulting on the side, all the while getting an unfathomable pension. Just disgusting. No ody is against firefighters, but they are subject to greed and self-interest like anybody else.
All perfectly legal at the time he retired, This was a county pension system he retired from. PERS has different rules regarding spiking and what can be counted in the final pension calculation. By the way- If you think this is such a great deal then why don’t you step up and apply rather than ranting about those who served.
MoJo must be on a public pension. This isn’t service, this is enrichment.
Mary Jo,
Actually all the fire districts with in the county have their retirement pay come from CCERA and their health care comes via PERS. It was Nowicki’s case that triggers a change in calculations that screwed mostly lower level non mid-management employees, mostly accounting staff who are commanded wot work overtime during year end closing and budget season. So for someone like me the first 7 years at the county when I wasn’t in a management class and was ordered to work overtime, that OT pay was extracted from my retirement. It wasn’t a lot of money, probably around $50 a month, but there is the principle of what his actions caused. Again I had no choice but to work the overtime. So thank you Chief Nowicki for screwing me and hundreds of other county employees.
Ooopss…Meant MoJo. Hate freakin auto correct
@mojo. Nice straw man right there. Who is criticizing him being a fireman? What can be criticized is the outrageous pension a 55 or 60 year old person can collect in California while supposedly being a “public” employee. By the very nature of the job you are supposedly working in the public’s interest not profiteering at the expense of the public. Shame on the progressive “bought and paid for” politicians in this state who are owned by the unions and created this system and while the “chief” in name only only took advantage of what was there for the taking that doesn’t mean the general public can’t criticize him.
Legal often means unjust.
This is what ‘woke’ brings us.
Math is so pesky & divisive!!!
Yip…7 out of 6 struggle with math. 🙂
Ummmmm I retired from the county and CCERA is the holder of my retirement account. Gee I didn’t get to turn in my personal calculations for my retirement pay. There was a on line calculation tool that that employees can fill in and get an estimate of payment. If I knew CCERA would except my personal calculation I would have added a million or 2 to my account.
Yeah, that part made no sense to me either.
Public Service Unions own the lawmakers at all levels in California. They bribe city councils, county supervisors, and state legislatures with campaign contributions, and then tell them how to vote. Public retirement systems are never adequately funded, and the taxpayers are on the hook.
@Tax Dollars
1. This was a Fire Chief, not a union employee.
2. Not well funded? CCCERA is 96% funded.
But nice story!
@Leo – Its not a nice story at all. It’s a sad but true story.
Nowicki not being in the union is irrelevant. His pension comes from CCCERA, governed by rules from the the Board of Supervisors, whose reelections are funded by the unions.
CCCERA and CalPers both cook their books using imaginary investment return numbers.
Tax Dollar
As a former county employee and union rep I can tell you the last 3 overall elections the only union that endorsed any incumbents was the DSA (deputy sheriff’s) The rest of us felt there need to be whole sale changes on the BoS as most had be there to long and were rather complacent about all issue in the county whether they were labor issues or not.
You and some other need to educate yourselves way better
Tax Dollars
Another point is that CCERA is NOT governed by the BoS. CCERA has it’s own board where a BoS member along with other sits on the board. Again you need to educate yourself
Pete Nowicki retired at age 50 with a $20,448/month pension. That is absolutely insane. The price to keep the Democrats in power via public employee wages and pensions is going to fiscally destroy this state. Every year the jockey gets fatter and the horse gets smaller. When I retire, and my income is fixed there is no way I am sticking around to fund these bloated pensions.
Amen brother.
Federal retirement pensions are based on the final three years of employment, not just the final year. This State and local pension system is constantly abused by massive overtime spiking in the final year. Compute the pensions based on the final three years like the feds do and this absurd system where the annual pensions exceed the annual base pay will be greatly limited.
The entire defined benefit pension plan should be banned. Public employees should have the same retirement plan as most private sector employees. Its not right to to saddle future generations with insane pension liabilities.
30 years ago some corrupt Democrat politicians made promises to buy votes using tax payer dollars. 30 years later the politician is long gone and we tax payers are left holding the non-biodegradable bag full of dog crap.
The PEPRA law in CA has addressed this for all new members (2013 and later) of public retirement plans
Another reason why our state pension system is broke. I wonder if he retired on disability like many other police and fire do. I can’t tell you how many of them I’ve met overseas living large on disability pensions and there’s not a damn thing wrong with them.
In some parts of the country, firemen/firewomen and chiefs are volunteers…
While that may not be possible here in CA, over $20k PER MONTH is still an overly-generous pension. But that’s the fault of the city/county.
As the courts will not void the sweetheart deals worked out between unions and corrupt politicians, the only way to address this abuse is to elect honest politicians who will impose an 85% marginal income tax rate on any public pension payment exceeding $100k/yr
@Van Xeter
+1
The real scam are when city, county, and state workers go out on a “disability” just prior to retiring. Most are accepted and then their retirements become tax-free depending on the percentage of their “disability.”
Chris
County disability retirement is not tax free as they use the money from the employee paid portion of the account first then the dip into County contribution portion. Since employee contributions are pretax dollars and at the time its collected it is taxed regardless of why the person retired.
That is more than a US president gets by a couple of thousand. I hate these stupid stories and people.
Gee Ricadoh a fire fighter on an active call does more than a president does in 6 months. Nowicki’s pension is crazy but firefighters have a very physically demanding job
Public employee pensions need to come to an end. They should have 401Ks like everyone else. They’re bankrupting the state and the taxpayers.
I am a paramedic who works for a private company doing work alongside the fire agencies. We transport the patients to the ER. The PERS retirement system is outrageous. I understand a normal pension but this is insane money. Those working for AMR or other private companies as medics get nothing in the way of a pension.
American Citizen
If you truly are a paramedic that works in concert with local fire agencies you would know that they are under CCERA and not PERS. Again educate yourself.
And if you don’t like how AMR treats you go somewhere else. Or go thru fire training and improve your lot in life
hey babies
go be a firefighter they need them now more than ever
then after 30 years tell us if you feel good and healthy
and dont deserve a nice pention for your shortened life
average life span of a fire fighter 20-25 years after retiring
so after being on call for 30 years 24 hours a day or night
as well as one fire after the next with no rest
during rain and wind and countless fires burning poison smoke
go walk that life before you cry about your pension from collecting unemployment or flipping burgers or sitting at a desk pushing paper
get a grip on reality
not everyone who does nothing gets what people worked hard for for a better portion of their lives
have some respect or get a fireman job before throwing self pity grenades
and you socialist loving dems do realize
you have no pension as a communist socialist green blm sjw
system sucker
you get lines for food and menial work for minimal credits
or have you not investigated socialism beyond what pro socialist tell you
likely not which is why you dont get a high pension
oh poor you ……
Random, you forgot to mention the grueling task of washing their trucks every other day and driving to Safeway to load up on groceries for the nightly BBQ. You also didn’t mention, job security, the posh working hours and massive overtime. Everyone knows and appreciates the risk they face, but these pensions are outrageous.
I’m sure if this fireman pulled your family out of a burning building you may change your mind about how much he’s getting for his pension.
For what it’s worth, in 2008, the same Board of Stupidvisors that was outraged by Nowicki’s retirement, was finally out of the spotlight for their own 60% raise that they awarded themselves in 2006.
Shhhh…….The Claycordians don’t want to hear that as it’s fact
Cowellian
There was also the 33% raise they gave themselves in either 2013 or 2014.
Yeah, I remember conversations with the Board of Stupidvisors’ anonymous sock puppet.
Good for him!! I can’t even get my SS because they state calls that double dipping, even though I paid into the system….. I should be able to get what I paid into…..
Even if you were PERS you can collect the SS that you put in prior to being PERS. So you are telling a tall tail.
I’m part of CCERA and we had to pay into SS as we were a non-Pers entity. But at 62, 65 or whatever age I can draw my SS. I have very good friend collecting from PERS and he collects his SS he put in before joining PERS.
So either you are telling a tall tale or you are on disability which is a roll over at 65
Yes it seems outrage the public employees get such Rich pensions after just 20 years.
Maybe I’m green with jealousy because all my blood sweat tears and heart attacks from work will never bring me that.
The news reported the two LA county lifeguards make over 400,000 a year now. They sit there at the Pacific Ocean in a bathing suit waiting to rescue someone and make that kind of money. They are part of the fire department down there and have been on the job 20 years.. So imagine what they’re going to retire with. It just seems so unfair
As much as you may not like the pension numbers, the Former Chief retired under a system that was set up and run by CCCERA, and his pension numbers were calculated by the system that CCCERA had in place at the time. If you want to blame anyone, blame CCCERA, the very system that tried to throw a retiree under the very bus it was driving. CCCERA.
The Social Security Administration can, and does, do the same thing. It’s unethical to work and plan with one expectation and be slapped with an unexpected exception after the fact. It’s a broken promise of the worst kind, a dirty trick. Retirement should be something you can rely upon and the rules under which you are granted that retirement unaltered thereafter. Otherwise, what is the point?
ugh still missing the point
go be a firefighter and reap
get off your chair and reap
get off the couch or away from your video games or poor paying job and actually go to work and train to be one of these people who can get a nice pension
otherwise complaining about it is like dem politicians blaming trump for what the dem politicians are doing
oh the death of christ must have been trump says every dem politician
oh these pensions are trumps fault
dem politicians allow this and promote it and back it and do it themselves
SOOOOOOO
i mean the dem politicians are squating over you and your families and you keep voting for them
i mean do we have to tell you not to drive full speed into a wall
if you want change you have to break some bills so to speak
or else go beg at a freeway exit
but stop blaming people who actually worked and trained to get where they are
you know like the american dream of hard work pays off or are you so delusional to think socialism will give you everything you want
if so congrats we are here
now what????
Most people do not receive a proper pension. Government employees the exception. Government unions negotiate contracts with people who in the end do not personally go broke if the give away the S#$% house. It’s as simple as that.