By Jason Islas

March 27, 2012 -- Santa Monica's City Council on Tuesday will decide whether to implement a two-tier pension system for City employees and resolve to safeguard free and fair elections, as well as weigh in on replacement parking for the Pier.

Like municipalities across the nation, Santa Monica is facing a budget crunch due to rising cost of employee pensions, City officials said.

“Pension costs are rising faster than our revenue,” said City Manager Rod Gould, adding that Santa Monica is prohibited by the California constitution from lowering the pensions of current employees.

In order to address the issue, City staff has recommended implementing a second tier pension system for non-public safety employees hired after July 1, 2012. Gould called the second tier pension “less lucrative.”

Currently, City employees can retire at 55 with 2.7 percent of their 12 highest paid consecutive months times their number of years of service up to 30 years. The second tier would reduce that to two percent of an average of an employee's three highest paid years, Gould said.

Tuesday's ordinance authorizing an amendment to the contract between the City and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CALPERS) Board is only part of a larger project to reduce pension costs to the City.

Last year, the City negotiated with various public employees in an effort to lower those costs, including asking firefighters and police officers to pay more into their pensions.

In a separate item, the council will also revisit a resolution that, if adopted, will express the City's support for overturning the Citizens United Supreme Court decisions that upheld the principle of corporate personhood.

The resolution would also express the Council's support for a constitutional amendment that prohibits corporate contributions to political campaigns.

When the resolution first went before the Council in late January, it failed when Mayor Richard Bloom – who called the idea of a constitutional amendment “a step too far” – voted it down along with Mayor Pro Tem Gleam Davis and Council members Bob Holbrooke and Bobby Shriver.

The resolution has since been revised and will be returned to the Council for consideration.

Aside from voting on such grandiose topics as constitutional amendments, the council also will consider a staff recommendation to relocate the 270 parking spaces on the Santa Monica Pier.

“The confluence of cars and pedestrians on the Santa Monica Pier creates a number of potential safety hazards,” staff wrote in its report.

One recommendation to offset the loss of the parking would be to build a small parking structure on a site currently used the City's Beach Maintenance group just north of the Pier.

The proposal is the initial step in a plan to bring the Expo Light Rail line to Downtown Santa Monica in 2015 and link the station at 5th Street and Colorado Avenue to the Pier with an esplanade that can accommodate the increased pedestrian traffic, staff said.