Retirement Benefits

* Re “Retirement Perk,” April 6.

A Los Angeles Times newspaper clipping of April 6 has been on my desk since that date. It reports the logic applied by Ventura County supervisors to justify approving the hidden retirement benefits for six elected department heads. It was ostensibly done “to level the playing field” of benefits enjoyed by appointed department heads. Here is why both that decision and logic totally baffle me.

At the high school I attended, part of the maintenance department’s job was to level the playing field at the end of each summer in preparation for football season. This task was accomplished by using a small tractor, with a grader attached, to scrape the entire field. It successfully reduced higher ridges caused by other athletic track activities which occurred in the spring. There was never any effort made to raise the rest of the entire field to bring the soil up to the higher ridges that resulted from shot puts, and runners practicing on wet grass. Level the playing field? The present policy justification defies logic; it does not apply it.

How long will it take before we taxpayers are faced with he same financial crisis from which Mr. Hufford just resuscitated Ventura County?

KATHERINE

GERSTENBERGER

Ventura