Retirement Benefits for Nurses and 911 Operators
Shall the City amend the Charter to allow registered nurses who are members of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System and meet certain requirements to purchase credits toward their total pension years of service for time previously worked as per diem nurses, and to allow 911 dispatchers, supervisors, and coordinators to increase their pension benefits by joining the SFERS Miscellaneous Safety Plan for time worked starting in January 2025?
This measure requires 50%+1 affirmative votes to pass.
Digest by the Ballot Simplification Committee
The Way It Is Now:
The City provides its employees with pension benefits through the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS).
SFERS determines the pension payment a retiree receives under each plan through a calculation based on the employee’s final compensation, years of service and age at retirement. That calculation varies between plans.
SFERS provides different plans for employees based on job type, including:
- Miscellaneous Plans for 911 dispatchers and their supervisors and coordinators, as well as most other City employees;
- Safety Plans for uniformed employees of the Police Department and Fire Department; and
- A Miscellaneous Safety Plan for certain probation officers, District Attorney investigators and juvenile court counselors.
In general, retirees receive greater pension benefits under the Safety Plans and the Miscellaneous Safety Plan than they do under the Miscellaneous Plans. Although 911 dispatchers are classified as First Responders in California, they do not receive Safety-level retirement pensions.
City employees contribute a percentage of their salary toward their retirement benefits. In some circumstances, employees may also purchase service credits to increase their pension benefits.
A “per diem nurse” is a Registered Nurse employed by the City on an occasional and temporary basis. Since 1988, per diem nurses have not been members of SFERS and do not receive any pension service credit for the hours they work on a per diem basis.
The Proposal:
Proposition I would allow eligible Registered Nurses to purchase service credit for hours they worked on a per diem basis. Registered Nurses who are or become members of SFERS and have worked an average of 32 hours or more per week for at least one year could purchase up to three years of service credit for time they previously worked solely as per diem nurses for the City before they became members of SFERS.
Proposition I would also move 911 dispatchers, supervisors and coordinators from the Miscellaneous Plans to the Miscellaneous Safety Plan for compensation those employees earn on and after January 4, 2025. As members of the Miscellaneous Safety Plan, these employees would be required to pay an increased amount into the pension plan and would receive increased pension benefits at retirement.
A "YES" Vote Means: If you vote "yes," you want to allow Registered Nurses who are members of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System and meet certain requirements to purchase credits toward their total pension years of service for time previously worked as per diem nurses, and to allow 911 dispatchers, supervisors and coordinators to increase their pension benefits by joining the SFERS Miscellaneous Safety Plan for time worked starting in January 2025.
A "NO" Vote Means: If you vote "no," you do not want to make these changes.
Controller's Statement on "I"
City Controller Greg Wagner has issued the following statement on the fiscal impact of Proposition I:
Should the proposed Charter amendment be approved by the voters, in my opinion, it would have a significant impact on the cost of government. Based on the Retirement System’s current actuarial assumptions and policies, the amendment would result in increased costs to the City ranging from approximately $3.8 million to approximately $6.7 million annually in the first year, with annual costs increasing over time.
Per Diem Nurse Retirement System Credit
The proposed Charter amendment would allow registered nurses in an SFERS eligible job classification to purchase up to three years of retirement service credit for time spent working as a per diem nurse. Currently, time worked as a per diem nurse is not eligible to earn retirement service credit. For context, as of July 1, 2023, 1,400 registered nurses actively working for the City would be eligible to buy back per diem service credit. The cost to buy back these years of service would be paid by the individual employee. The amendment would not allow time worked as a per diem nurse to establish an earlier membership date in SFERS.
The estimated annual cost of increased City retirement costs would depend on the number of individuals who buy back prior service credit and could range from approximately $1.5 million to approximately $4.4 million per year in increased City retirement contributions.
Public Safety Communications Personnel
The proposed Charter amendment would move 911 dispatchers, including supervisors and coordinators, from the miscellaneous retirement plans to the miscellaneous safety retirement plan. The amendment would require time spent working by 911 dispatchers after January 4, 2025 to be credited to their miscellaneous safety retirement plans.
The estimated annual cost to the City is approximately $2.3 million starting in FY 2025-26 in increased retirement contributions and would increase each year as the amount of the affected payroll increases. For context, approximately 175 911-dispatchers (including supervisors and coordinators) work for the City.
To the extent the proposed amendment encourages existing 911 dispatchers to work additional years, the City may be able to defer or reduce the cost to onboard new 911 dispatchers – but at a rate that cannot be predicted at this time. For context, training and onboarding one new 911 dispatcher costs between approximately $225,000 and $235,000.
How "I" Got on the Ballot
On July 23, 2024, the Board of Supervisors voted 11 to 0 to place Proposition I on the ballot. The Supervisors voted as follows:
Yes: Chan, Dorsey, Engardio, Mandelman, Melgar, Peskin, Preston, Ronen, Safai, Stefani, Walton.
No: None.
The above statement is an impartial analysis of this measure. Arguments for and against this measure immediately follow. The full text can be found under Legal Text. Some of the words used in the ballot digest are explained in Words You Need to Know.
Arguments are the opinions of the authors and have not been checked for accuracy by any official agency. Arguments are printed as submitted. Spelling and grammatical errors have not been corrected.
Proponent’s Argument in Favor of Proposition I
San Francisco faces a dire shortage of 9-1-1 dispatchers and Registered Nurses.
Prop I will improve recruitment and retention of these critical First Responders, reducing the strain on taxpayers caused by hiring shortages and excessive overtime.
Prop I is critical to fill the 9-1-1 staffing shortage.
San Francisco has a 20% staffing shortage in our 9-1-1 dispatch system. Dispatchers are working unsustainable 15-18 hour shifts. They’re exhausted and nearing a breaking point.
To treat dispatchers fairly to stay on the job, and to attract the highest quality new dispatchers, we need to provide the same retirement benefits to dispatchers as other public safety employees.
Dispatchers are classified as First Responders, but they don’t receive the same safety plan retirement benefits. That must change. With Prop I, it will.
Prop I is critical to fill the nursing shortage.
Our Registered Nurses have it no better. San Francisco employs thousands of RNs as public servants, but hundreds of positions go unfilled. RNs are exhausted, leaving the City for private hospitals.
To get RNs working quickly, the City hires temporary, traveling nurses through corporate contractors—costing taxpayers 14% more. Yet, Nurses are the only City employees not allowed to buy back pension time after becoming permanent employees.
Prop I fixes this loophole by giving temporary RNs the opportunity to join the ranks of our full-time nurses, with pension options for time worked, saving taxpayers 14%.
Prop I is a win-win-win for San Francisco’s budget, taxpayers, and safety.
Prop I provides San Francisco’s emergency dispatchers and nurses the benefits they deserve, so we can retain our dedicated public safety professionals, attract new talent, and improve our city’s emergency services.
Join 911 dispatchers, nurses, Service Employees International Union Local 1021, and public safety advocates and vote YES on I.
Supervisor Ahsha Safai
Supervisor Myrna Melgar
Supervisor Dean Preston
Supervisor Shamann Walton
Supervisor Connie Chan
Supervisor Matt Dorsey
Supervisor Aaron Peskin
Supervisor Catherine Stefani
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman
Supervisor Joel Engardio
Service Employees International Union Local 1021
Rebuttal to Proponent’s Argument in Favor of Proposition I
When you have a $790 million budget deficit, as San Francisco’s city government does this year, it's time for belt-tightening, not more spending.
But instead of acting responsibly, members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have stuffed our ballot with measures that, in the words of the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board, "would hand out new multimillion-dollar pension benefits like they were Tic Tacs."
Supervisor Asha Safaí's Proposition I is one of these measures. Caving in to the demands of powerful employee unions is not a good look for someone running for mayor.
San Francisco has a bloated city government with 60 departments and over 34,000 employees. And even this is likely understating the true scope of local government, because according to the recent Civil Grand Jury report, it also maintains contracts with over 600 non-profits.
If city departments supposedly can't attract enough registered nurses or 911 operators, perhaps part of the problem is that too many potential employees are already working for the government in other less necessary capacities?
Government can't keep paying its employees more and more, while continuing to expand their numbers. The burden on the rest of the city's taxpayers, including both residents and businesses, will just keep growing and become more and more unsustainable.
It's time to stop the insanity.
Vote NO on Prop. I.
Starchild
Libertarian Party of San Francisco
LPSF.org
Opponent's Argument Against Proposition I
Among the bumper crop of ballot measures before us this November are some that get deep into the arcane world of the public employee pension system. Chalk it up to government greed.
Proposition I proposes charter amendments to expand pension benefits for two groups of public employees that have suffered from national "first responder" staffing shortages since the pandemic — registered nurses and the public safety communications staff who operate the 911 emergency line.
It would allow the City's "per diem" registered nurses, i.e. those who currently or in the past have elected to work flexible schedules as temps (without pension benefits), to become full-time nurses for the City (with pension benefits). It also gives them the right to retroactively buy (at a profit) up to three years of pension benefits for their time worked on a "per diem" basis. The Controller costs this right to buy three years' past service credit at anywhere from $1.5 million to $4.4 million, given the uncertainty as to how many nurses will exercise it. But one popular website currently gives the median pay for a registered nurse in San Francisco as $147,104 per year (85% above the national average, attributing the high wage to the high cost of living and a strong union).
Proposition I also switches the pension plan for the City's emergency response 911 dispatchers from the current one to the higher-paying one used for firemen and police. The stated purpose is to deal with a current vacancy rate of 20-25% among dispatchers and an increased volume of calls from pre-pandemic levels. But better training programs are already in process.
The rationale seems to be that they're all emergency services, even if the risks faced in dealing with fires and guns aren't quite the same as those involved in answering the phones.
Avoid the "first responder" panic-mongering. Just say NO.
LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF SAN FRANCISCO
LPSF.org
Rebuttal to Opponent’s Argument Against Proposition I
Prop I is a win-win-win, commonsense solution for San Francisco’s budget, taxpayers, and public safety.
Prop I provides San Francisco’s 9-1-1 dispatchers and nurses the pension benefits they deserve, so we can retain our dedicated public safety professionals, attract new talent, and improve our City’s emergency services.
Registered Nurses in our City’s public hospitals are on the frontlines of San Francisco’s health crises. They love their jobs. But the City’s burdensome hiring process is delaying temporary, per diem nurses from being hired as full-time Registered Nurses, exacerbating our staffing crisis. We are losing highly-trained nurses every year to private hospitals, which offer higher salaries, better benefits, and more support.
That’s why we need Prop I.
Prop I allows temp nurses to purchase up to three years of retirement service credit, for time they spent working for the City, to fill empty nursing positions, and attract and retain dedicated professionals who provide top-quality care for patients at Zuckerberg San Francisco General and other City hospitals.
Prop I will finally honor the service of 9-1-1 dispatchers to ensure they receive the same, improved Safety level retirement benefits as other public safety professionals. This is a commonsense solution to attract the workforce we need to improve our 9-1-1 emergency response.
We owe it to our nurses, 9-1-1 operators, and all San Franciscans to pass Prop I, so we can fix these public safety shortages and make our city safer for all of us.
Vote YES on Prop I.
Supervisor Ahsha Safai
Paid Arguments in Favor of Proposition I
1
Registered Nurses working for the San Francisco Department of Public Health are on the front lines of every crisis our City faces.
As the only Level 1 trauma center, we turn no one away. Victims of violence, sexual assaults, cardiac arrests, strokes, and frequent pedestrian-versus-auto/scooter accidents arrive 24 hours a day. We also provide health care, mental health services, and drug treatment to the City’s most vulnerable populations. Laguna Honda Hospital, the largest skilled nursing facility in the country, was recently saved from closure thanks to our staff's dedication.
Despite this, we struggle to recruit and retain great nurses. The City’s broken hiring process causes delays of hundreds of days to hire a nurse into a permanent role. Nurses seeking full-time positions are denied and offered temporary exempt per diem jobs, which come with no benefits, pension, or paid time off. When a nurse finally secures a permanent position, they lose retirement credit for their per diem service.
Proposition I would allow permanent nurses to buy back up to three years of pension credit for their service as per diems, incentivizing them to stay and encouraging proper hiring from the start.
More importantly, the amendment would correct an inequity. Nurses, the majority of whom are women, are the only classification of City workers who cannot buy back pension time. By extending this right, the amendment encourages long-term commitment to San Francisco’s public hospitals and clinics.
San Francisco’s safety net nurses ask you to vote YES on Proposition I.
Heather Bollinger, RN
SEIU Local 1021 RN Chapter President
The true source(s) of funds for the printing fee of this argument: Improve Emergency Response Times, Yes on I.
Paid Arguments Against Proposition I
No Paid Arguments Against Proposition I Were Submitted
Legal Text
Proposition “Retirement Benefits for Nurses and 911 Operators”
Describing and setting forth a proposal to the voters at an election to be held on November 5, 2024, to amend the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco to allow registered nurses, who are or become members of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System and have worked an average of 32 hours or more per week for at least one year, to purchase up to three years of service credit for time previously worked as per diem nurses; and to move public safety communications personnel (911 dispatchers, supervisors, and coordinators) from the miscellaneous retirement plans to the miscellaneous safety retirement plan, for compensation earned on and after January 4, 2025.
Section 1. Findings.
(a) Per Diem Nurse Retirement Credit Purchases.
(1) According to the United States Registered Nurse Workforce Report Card and Shortage Forecast, a national shortage of registered nurses (RNs) is projected to exist through 2030, with the most intense shortage in the Western region of the United States. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, are projecting that many regions of California – including San Francisco – will face a shortage of RNs through 2035, due to the number of RNs expected to retire or enter advanced practices, as well as the burnout, stress, exhaustion, and frustration among nurses in the post-pandemic era.
(3) A San Francisco Chronicle article dated April 23, 2024, noted that the nursing shortage is already being felt in our public health system, and ZSFG nursing staff believe the shortage is at a “crisis level.” A San Francisco Department of Public Health (“DPH”) survey found that 73% of the hospital’s workforce would not recommend ZSFG as a place to receive care. The same survey found that the percentage of hospital employees who would recommend working at ZSFG dropped from 63% of respondents in 2019 to 32% in 2023.
(6) As of March 2024, San Francisco had an estimated 169 fully funded RN positions that were vacant. By allowing new and existing nurses to purchase up to three years of retirement service credit for time they spent working as per diem nurses for the City, San Francisco will be better equipped to compete with the private sector – the number one competitor for nursing talent – to fill our nursing positions, and to attract and retain these dedicated healthcare professionals who provide top-quality care for patients at ZSFG and elsewhere in the City’s healthcare system.
(b) Retirement Plan for Public Safety Communications Personnel.
(1) Public Safety Communications Personnel, which include 911 dispatchers, supervisors, and coordinators, work with the public and other first responders to protect the lives of residents of and visitors to San Francisco. Although they are a critical component of our emergency response system, the City’s public safety communications personnel teams have been chronically understaffed for years, negatively affecting emergency response times.
(4) In 2020, California Assembly Bill 1945, codified at Government Code Sec. 8562, included emergency dispatchers among the list of first responders for whom the state must develop emergency preparedness training materials. Yet, 911 operators statewide do not receive the same retirement benefits as other first responders.
(5) This Charter amendment reclassifies Public Safety Communications Personnel as members in the Miscellaneous Safety Plan rather than members in the Miscellaneous Plans in SFERS, both to recognize the vital importance of their work and to make the position more attractive for qualified job seekers. This change will help DEM fill its vacant positions more quickly, and retain its employees for longer periods of time, which will reduce call response times and improve emergency service for all of San Francisco’s residents, workers, and visitors.
Section 2. The Board of Supervisors hereby submits to the qualified voters of the City and County, at an election to be held on November 5, 2024, a proposal to amend the Charter of the City and County by adding new Sections A8.524 and A8.611, to read as follows:
NOTE: Unchanged Charter text is in plain font.
Additions are single-underline italics Times New Roman font.
Deletions are strike-through italics Times New Roman font.
Asterisks (* * * *) indicate the omission of unchanged Charter subsections.
A8.524 RETIREMENT SYSTEM CREDIT FOR PER DIEM NURSE SERVICE
(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Charter, any member of the Retirement System under Sections A8.509, A8.587, A8.600, A8.603, or any subsequently approved miscellaneous plan, who is employed in a registered nurse classification that qualifies them for membership in the Retirement System may purchase up to three years aggregated retirement service credit for time worked in a P103 per diem appointment prior to becoming a member of the Retirement System, subject to the terms of this Section A8.524.
(b) A member shall be eligible to purchase retirement service credit as set forth in subsection (a), only if:
(1) the member is a registered nurse;
(2) the member has worked an average of not less than 32 regularly-scheduled hours per week for at least one calendar year in a registered nurse classification that qualifies them for membership in the Retirement System prior to electing to purchase service credit; and
(3) during the time in which the member worked in a P103 per diem appointment for which they seek to purchase credit, the member did not concurrently work in a nurse job classification that is within the Retirement System.
(c) Nothing in this Section A8.524 shall permit any time worked as a P103 per diem nurse to be used to establish membership in the Retirement System.
(d) The employing department shall certify to the Retirement System that a member is eligible to purchase retirement service credit pursuant to eligibility criteria set forth in this Charter Section A8.524. A member electing to purchase service credit with the Retirement System for a period of qualifying per diem appointment must so elect in writing on a form provided by the Retirement System. This election must be made and payment received before the effective date of retirement.
(e) The cost to purchase this prior service credit shall be based on the contribution rate percentage in effect at the time the service was rendered. Service credit will be allowed only for such contributions plus interest received by the Retirement System from the member prior to the effective date of retirement. A member cannot receive more than 80 hours of service credit in a pay period and cannot receive more than one year of service credit in a fiscal year, as a result of such prior service credit purchase.
(f) This Section A8.524 creates no vested right to the benefits received pursuant to this Section. The voters expressly reserve the right to alter, reduce, or repeal such benefits for any or no reason.
(g) This Section A8.524 shall not apply to Retirement System members who retired, died, or separated prior to the effective date of this Section, or to their successors in interest.
A8.611 PUBLIC SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS PERSONNEL
(a) Effective January 4, 2025, Public Safety Communications Personnel shall be classified as miscellaneous safety plan employees. For purposes of this Section A8.611, “Public Safety Communications Personnel” means public safety communications dispatchers, public safety communications supervisors, and public safety communications coordinators.
(b) As of January 4, 2025, Public Safety Communications Personnel shall be subject to the provisions of Section A8.610 through A8.610-16, in addition to the provisions of this Section A8.611, regardless of their date of hire. For Public Safety Communications Personnel, computation of service under Section A8.610-10 shall be time during which a member is entitled to receive compensation in a Public Safety Communications Personnel job classification on and after January 4, 2025. Time during which a Public Safety Communications Personnel member was entitled to receive compensation before January 4, 2025 shall remain in the miscellaneous plan applicable to the member.
(c) Section A8.611 shall not apply to a Public Safety Communications Personnel member who separated from service, retired, or died before January 4, 2025, or to the member’s continuant.