Posted on 12/27/2016 5:20:54 PM PST by SgtHooper
For the first time in its 85-year history, the California Public Employees Retirement System, CalPERS, is drastically cutting benefits for public retirees. Starting January 1st, four retired City of Loyalton public employees will have their pensions cut 60 percent. For 71-year-old Patsy Jardin, that means her pension will drop from about $49,000 a year to a little more than $19,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
The voters tacitly agreed to this and continued to agree to it by continuing to vote Democrat. -shrug- They voted for it, they need to feel the pain themselves.
One way to start getting the pension fund into line is to go back and recalculate ALL the pensions.
Instead of their highest SINGLE year, base their pension on the average of their highest 3 consecutive years.... or 5 highest consecutive years.
This will help eliminate the fraud that was occurring where an about to retire fireman or policeman would get all the overtime in the department for their final year - sometimes making 2-3 times their normal wages.
“You’d need millions in reserves to generate that.”
Right. Patsy is STILL living the good life with a 19k pension.
Most people have NO pension.
How ‘bout some sob stories about them?
“The voters tacitly agreed to this and continued to agree to it by continuing to vote Democrat. -shrug- They voted for it, they need to feel the pain themselves.”
Yup.
The saps who got taken by Bernie Madoff, they lost all their money.
It’s sad, but it happens.
Interesting mess. Thanks for posting.
The debt also belongs to the citizens.
Bit of a misleading headline...the City of Loyalton pulled out of the CalPERS system and didn’t make their final CalPERS pension payment, so CalPERS reduced pension payments for Loyalton pensioners & future retirees. I would assume that the city is now self-funding pensions or has another pension company? Anyway CalPERS is still paying 100% of pension amounts for entities still enrolled in CalPERS. The thing that CalPERS did do recently was reduce the “expected earnings” rate to 7% from 7.5%. See: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-calpers-pension-costs-20161223-story.html
For more detail on the City of Loyalton pension cut see: https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2016/city-loyalton-non-payment-pension
Makes perfect sense.
Should we allot funds for law enforcement or retired law enforcers?
Should we allot funds for firefighters or retired firefighters?
Should we allot funds for teachers or for retired teachers?
Should we allot funds for state/federal workers or for retired...you get the picture.
Across the country, there are over 200 trillion dollars of such unfunded liabilities. For the promises you suggest be honored, it would be imperative for state/fed. govs. to confiscate all monies earned by everyone in the country to even make a dent.
1.63mm at 3%. Using 7% which grows more unsustainable each year its 800k. None of their projections would seem to take in a year, never mind two or three of losses.
Yes, but the thing is, California (like many such entities) *does* have the money. They’ve just decided to spend it on idiot liberal causes instead. That’s what I’m getting at - it’s not a matter of choosing to allot funds for current cops or retired cops, it’s a matter of choosing to allot funds for current *and* retired cops OR a stupid choo-choo to nowhere, huge habitats where nothing lives, ‘green energy’ boondoggles, welfare for illegals, etc.
What I’m getting at is that CA should be forced to choose between dumping their idiot liberal programs to live up to the contractual promises they made or continuing their idiot liberal programs right up until the point where they go bankrupt and everyone gets screwed.
You think? If she owns a home she has to pay taxes and assorted other costs. If she lives in a modest apartment in Cal. shes probably paying around a thousand a month in rent. We’re talking Cal right, not some state where rents are more modest. This is simply payback from Calpers because the city pulled out of the system. Its not a lot of money in Cal. Its practically poverty level.
Sorry but i think its wrong when looking at the massive pensions they pay out to others. Calpers picked a low hanging target. You think they’d pull this on the teachers union?
I’m pretty sure they borrowed to build the bullet train. I think they may currently have access to money but its akin yo a city having so many days of food before the riots break out.
But they could certainly borrow the fund with better intent.
Perhaps Californians are prepared for 100% tax rate to cover 'promises.'
They’re bragging about having a 2.8 billion dollar budget surplus (which they don’t, it’s just on paper) and are visibly looking around for something to spend it on. I can think of someplace that hypothetical 2.8B needs to go... http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/11/17/66216/california-analyst-projects-2-8-billion-budget-sur/
Canceling just the stupid train to nowhere would return something like 1/3rd of their pension shortfall. That’s not just a drop in the bucket...
And I’m perfectly fine with that. They voted for it, they kept voting for it, they need to pay for it.
They need to learn that ‘free stuff’ isn’t actually free.
good article but not totally on subject.
One out of 8 high speed lines in Japan is profitable. It services an area of 75mm people. The California train will draw from a population of 26mm.
a decision will need to be made...bankruptcy vs starving the life out of the state...OR making reasonable cutbacks in "promised" pension....
sure like to know why the govt can renege on other "promises" but won't on pensions...
Just doing the rough math, Cali has between 10-15 trillion unfunded liabilities. They would have to cancel 10s of thousands of trains to no where to cover all pensions in arrears.
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