When the angry citizens of Bell, California, forced their outrageously overpaid city manager and police chief to resign, it may be the best thing that ever happened to the two. Consider the pension now due city manager Robert Rizzo.

“His lifetime pension will be roughly $30 million,” said Marcia Fritz of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.

And the pension due police chief Randy Adams.

“His lifetime pension will be more like $15 to $17 million,” said Fritz.

But it’s taxpayers in other cities who will be shelling out for these lavish pensions because in California every city or county an employee worked for has to pick up a portion of the pension. And the pension is based on the final year’s salary alone, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.

For more, read the entire transcript here or watch the video below:

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Numerous articles on Richman appeared in media statewide over the weekend as word spread of his death. Obituaries were published by the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Daily News, and Santa Clarita radio station KHTS, plus a video report appeared on KCBS-TV Channel 2 and a touching tribute was written by KHTS radio co-owner Carl Goldman.

Fritz will be participating in a panel titled “Smart Detour or Dead End: Does Initiative & Referendum Provide a Path to Advance Your Agenda?” moderated by Paul Elias of the Associated Press. Other panelists will be: Eric Ehst, Arizona Clean Elections Institute; Rob Kampia, Marijuana Policy Project; Steven Hill, on Instant Runoff Voting; Tim Mooney, Silver Bullet Inc and Save Our Secret Ballot,Nevada; Tim Eyman, Voters Want More Choices, Washington; and Jung-OK Lee, Korea Democracy Foundation.

To get more information on the conference, click here. To see the complete schedule and get information on registration, click here.

Dean will serve as moderator of a panel titled “Will States Need a Bailout?” Participating on the panel will be: Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute; Keith Brainard, research director of the National Association of State Retirement Administrators; and State Senator Chris Lauzen of Illinois.

You can find more details, including registration information, here.

The entire morning event will be webcast live here, and will be archived online in the near future.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Pension data supplied by Marcia was also used by the CBS Evening News. CFFR was credited in the tagline under the info, which appears about halfway through the segment.

Read the accompanying text article here.

Here’s a good summary of the situation reported by Rebecca Hall on KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles:

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PENSION TSUNAMI: The Billion-Dollar Bubble

During recent periods of economic prosperity our City officials, along with compassionate voters, created relatively generous pensions for many City employees. With the recent downturn in our economy and loss of millions in value from the City’s pension fund, these rapidly increasing costs threaten to jeopardize the City’s financial future. The Office of the Controller estimates that the funding of pension and retiree health benefit costs for fiscal year 2010 is $413 million, which is expected to rise to $1 billion in 2015, approximately a third of the City’s current General Fund. The expected General Fund contribution, which is approximately 61% of the total pension and retiree health benefits costs, will increase annually by $60 million for the next five years.  This shift in resources may drastically impact funding to other basic services, affecting all San Franciscans.

Pension Pie: The typical San Francisco public servant will receive a modest pension after many years of service and the Grand Jury is grateful for their dedication and hard work. However, we note that 24% of retired firefighters, 12% of retired police officers, and 1% of miscellaneous (non-safety) employees receive retirement benefits of over $100,000 a year. The California Pension Reform website designates these as “the $100K Club,” and San Francisco has more than 900 retirees in this category.

Forgotten Proposition H: In 2002, San Francisco voters passed Proposition H, a charter amendment changing the formula for Police and Firefighter retirement benefits and mandating that, should the City’s contribution rate to the pension fund exceed 0%, the City and Safety employees’ representatives should “meet and confer” on a “material pension cost-sharing arrangement.”  The City’s contribution rate has exceeded 0% since fiscal 2004-05, yet the Jury found no evidence that the City and Safety employee bargaining agents established such a cost-sharing arrangement. The Jury has recommended that the City Attorney seek a court order requiring the SFERS Board to comply with the City Charter.

The Swap: Since 2002 the City has “picked up” the employees’ 7.5% pension contributions for members of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 and other smaller collective bargaining units (at least 9,883 employees). In May 2010, the City and SEIU Local 1021 entered into an agreement that employees pay their own 7.5% contributions, and, in return, that the City increase the employees’ base wage by 6% or approximately $60 million, effective July 1, 2010. This “swap” was described as “cost neutral” for budgetary purposes. However, the City’s negotiation team apparently failed to consider that the $60 million swap would significantly impact the City’s future pension obligations.

Pension Spiking and Pyramiding: Pension Spiking is an end-of-career promotion or an excessive raise to increase or “spike” workers’ final pensionable income during the last year of employment, the base period for calculating the pension amount. The Jury found that seventy-one Firefighter retirees received a 10% or more increase in pensionable income in their final year before retirement — approximately 68% of the total number of Firefighters who retired over the past 22 months. There were few instances of spiking among Police or other retirees for that period. The Jury also found instances of pension-pyramiding among some nursing supervisors, for example. These retirees have been allowed to hold two concurrent jobs, resulting in dual pensions. The Jury recommends that the City take steps to curb abuses from pension spiking and pension-pyramiding by limiting the final pensionable income an employee can claim at retirement.

The Grand Jury report can be read or downloaded here.