State and local governments are enduring financial challenges like never before, but unlike private business, which has shed jobs and reduced payrolls, the public sector continues to mete out salaries and benefits as if little in the economy has gone awry.

Until there’s a definitive move to cut employee salaries, benefits and workdays—and the unions acquiesce—the support for our public leaders will continue to erode.

A loss of confidence already is taking place in Simi Valley

The average Joes are doing their part, but they just don’t feel the public administrators with the golden parachutes are doing theirs. The landscape has changed and our public service employees need to adjust to the new scenery.

A recent study has shown that for the first time in the country’s history, more workers belong to government unions than private ones. The trend toward big government is evident right here in Simi, where an astounding 14 percent of the city’s general fund must go toward paying for workers’ pensions. This is not salary we’re talking about. This is the money that workers receive after they retire. Vested pensions in the private sector are practically a thing of the past, an anachronism as old as General Motors, yet taxpayers must continue to foot the bill for public employee pensions regardless of the fact that the rest of the economy has tanked.

Particularly galling is the fact that many workers don’t even have to provide matching contributions to retirement funds. The city (you, the taxpayer) pays everything for them. And unlike a private IRA, Roth or 401(k) plan, which is tied to the vagaries of the market and promises no guaranteed rate of return upon retirement, the public plan gives each worker a fixed income until the day he dies.

The thinking used to be that public employees made lower salaries than those in the private sector and thus needed better benefits to compensate. But not only have corresponding public salaries caught up, the jobs themselves are difficult to lose.

Not a moment too soon, Simi officials are considering a rollback in pension benefits. We don’t begrudge the work that our dedicated city workers do for us, but we do feel it’s time for pension reform. Enough is enough.