When Peter Nowicki retired in 2009, the then-50-year-old chief of the tiny Moraga Orinda Fire District made national news by trading his $194,000 salary for a starting pension of $241,000 a year. The pension board will consider rolling that back 25 percent.

Click on the following link for the full article: www.contracostatimes.com

Dave Tate’s comments: I’m forwarding this article because it hits on some key points. Otherwise, I have no personal knowledge of the facts, and I am not commenting on right or wrong. However, the key points are the need for transparency to the public, open meeting laws, and ” . . . the retirement association, armed with investigatory powers under new state law, launched probes . . . . ” All three, transparency, open meeting laws, and the power and ability to investigate are key, along with the actual investigation. I would have liked to have seen more in the article about internal audit, and processes and procedures in place to prevent, evaluate and investigate these types of issues before they get to this stage.

Dave Tate, Esq. and licensed Certified Public Accountant (inactive) in California, (San Francisco and throughout California). Blogs: http://directorofficernews.com and http://californiaestatetrust.com