Posted on 11/15/2014 5:32:20 PM PST by SeekAndFind
A decade ago, many of California's public pension plans had plenty of money to pay for workers' retirements.
All that has changed, according to a far-reaching package of data from the state controller. Taxpayers are now on the hook for billions of dollars more to cover the future retirements of public workers, with the bill widely varying depending on where they live.
The City of Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System, for instance, had more than enough funds in 2003 to cover its estimated future bill for workers' retirement checks. A decade later, it is short $3 billion.
The state's pension goliath, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, had $281 billion to cover the benefits promised to 1.3 million workers and retirees in 2013. Yet it needed an additional $57 billion to meet future obligations.
The bill at the state teachers' pension fund is even higher: It has an estimated shortfall of $70 billion.
The new data from a website created by state Controller John Chiang come at a time of growing anger from taxpayers over the skyrocketing cost of public workers' retirements.
Until now, the bill for those government pensions was buried deep in the funds' financial reports. By making this data available, Chiang is bound to stir debate about how taxpayers can afford to make retirement more comfortable for public workers when private-sector employees' own financial futures have become less secure. For most non-government workers, fixed monthly pensions are increasingly rare.
"Somebody, who is knowledgeable and interested, is several clicks away from the ugly mess that will define California's financial future," said Dan Pellissier, president of California Pension Reform, a Sacramento-area group seeking to stem rising statewide retirement costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The state dips into pension funds to pay for their social programs ....
Liberals are totally to blame for ruining Detroit and California.
As bad as California is concerning under funded pensions, Illinois is worse. Just read it today, Illinois is number one. Go Illinois!
22% funded.
Not only that but the pension fund administrators have used estimated 8% + returns for planning purposes and they haven’t even come close to getting those returns for the last 10 years. Also, the management expenses have skyrocketed along with the level of corruption.
The Marxocrats ‘Cloward & Piven’ dream of Martial Law is just around the corner. They’ll beg a few million more illegals to barge into the State while they’re at it!
Get rid of the unions, get rid of the Democrats, get rid of all the U.N. stuff the State is doing, and get back to managing the State, and off the kick of buying votes for power.
Knowin’ it’ll never happen.
I personally know several mexifornia pensioners here in N. Idaho who moved here to escape the mess they helped to create. May be they can all become Walmart greeters.
We've banned plastic bags and there's a plan to build the bullet train to nowhere.
No worries.
Jerry's got this.
About 5 years ago, the Chief of Police of San Francisco General Hospital in ONE YEAR with overtime made $500,000.
His entire jurisdiction is the hospital.
Tax Nevada and Oregon to make up the difference.
Can’t wait to hear the spin from the dems when TSHTF over this! Just the few responses above expose a litany of mismanagement, deceptive practices and outright theft, will they try to blame it all on the Republicans? [++snark]
and just about every major city they are in charge of. which is most of them. where there’s a huge structure for welfare and freebies, the dems are there running things into the ground.
he’d be better off killing the train and building desalination plants.
Eight percent is achievable in a low fee highly diversified balanced fund (2/3 stocks, 1/3 bonds). The Vanguard Wellington Fund has been in existence since 1929. Its average annual return since 1929 has been 8.29%. Its average return over the past 10 years , which includes the 2008 recession, is 8.38%. Its average annual return over the past 5 years is 11.98%, three years 13.75%, and one year 11.94%.
Had California simply put its pension money in Wellington ten years ago, the fund would be solvent and it could have saved the cost of an entire bureaucracy. Fire the administrators today and let a private sector firm with decades of proven performance manage the money.
Unfunded? Underfunded? That’s not the only thing…
$115,555,121,750,381 US UNFUNDED LIABILITIES when I typed this…(check it out now…bottom lower right)
(YOU DID build this CONgre$$…see something, say something ALERT!)
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat
Socialism is unsustainable.
Socialists are useless eaters.
(pay up debt slaves)
Cry me a river. Get the money from Detroit.
A fat pension so they can retire to Colorado and Texas to help turn the state blue is their reward for a lifetime of support.
NJ is in bad shape as well; if they tried to pass the cost on to taxpayers in one fell swoop the whole state would be deserted in a month (and eastern Pennsylvania would be packed to the gills with people). Instead, they give us death by a thousand cuts...
Here in NJ they just don’t make the contributions.
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