Jamie Hansen

Public Defender Jeff Adachi speaks at City Hall July 6, 2011

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced Wednesday that he plans go forward with his alternative proposal to City Hall's pension reform plan — that is, unless the city incorporates a compromise that Adachi put forth in a press conference Wednesday.

The announcement comes less than a week before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is slated to begin considering the pension reform proposal introduced by Mayor Ed Lee and a coalition of unions in late May.

Both proposals seek to address San Francisco's $306 million budget deficit by increasing city employee contributions to pension funds, though workers would contribute as much as 5 percentage points more under Adachi's plan.

Lee's pension reform plan was achieved through months of negotiations with unions and has the support of the police and firefighters, among others. (Investor Warren Hellman, who is chairman of The Bay Citizen, was also part of the group that produced it.) Adachi says the plan would not save the city enough money, especially after Lee's recent agreement with police and firefighters that they could take the raises — first promised them in 2007 — in exchange for increasing their pension contributions.

The board plans to take up Lee’s proposal on July 12 and vote on it a week later. Adachi said he hopes the supervisors will consider adapting the proposal to his compromise.

Under the compromise, the pension contributions of the lowest-earning city employees would be the same as or less than under the City Hall plan for the next fiscal year, while the highest-paid workers would pay the same amount as under Adachi's plan, according to figures released by Adachi Wednesday. Middle earners would pay amounts between those proposed in the two measures. 

For example, a firefighter earning $80,000 would contribute 11 percent of his or her salary in the next fiscal year under the City Hall plan; 13 percent under the compromise; and 14.5 percent under Adachi's plan. 

The compromise would save the city $97 million in fiscal year 2012-2013, compared with $59 million under the city's plan and $107 million under Adachi's, according to the public defender's calculations. By fiscal year 2014-2015, those savings would ramp up to $124 million per year under the compromise plan, $84 million under the city's plan and $138 million under Adachi's.

Lee told a group of Bay Citizen reporters and editors in February that a viable plan would need to save around $300 million to $400 million annually, or else the city could be bankrupt in five to 10 years.