Posted on 05/20/2018 10:03:30 PM PDT by george76
Connecticut’s official balance sheets will be noticeably worse next year due to changes in how the state reports its retiree healthcare liabilities...
Truth in Accounting issued Connecticut a failing grade based on its 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and said the state is “hiding” $10.4 billion in retiree healthcare debt.
“Connecticut’s financial condition is not only concerning, but also misleading as government officials failed to disclose significant amounts of retirement debt on the state’s balance sheet,” the report says. “As a result, residents and taxpayers have been presented with an inaccurate and untruthful accounting of the state government’s finances.”
According to Connecticut’s 2017 CAFR the net liability for Other Post Employment Benefits is $10.4 billion, but Truth in Accounting says that number is actually more like $20.5 billion because starting next year the state will have to report the full value of its healthcare liabilities.
...
the true retiree healthcare numbers are buried in the CAFR and require a lot of digging to find. The result is a balance sheet that looks better than it actually is, which could be problematic for a state already facing significant financial difficulties.
“It’s not on the balance sheet, but it will be next year,” Bergman said. “So the net position Connecticut is reporting is overstated.”
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The change will affect not only Connecticut’s bottom line but all states, and may result in a large-scale wake up call regarding retiree healthcare debt...
New York’s retiree healthcare debt will jump from $17 billion to $72 billion once the new standards are put in place.
The Truth in Accounting report shows Connecticut owes $81.9 billion in bills but has only $12.1 billion in assets, leaving Connecticut in the red by nearly $70 billion, amounting to $53,400 per person in the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at yankeeinstitute.org ...
As been said many time, the feds would fine any citizen for all their worth if we did 1/10th of what these crooks do on a daily basis.
All of these CPA etc are supposed to live up to Circ 230 rules. Bastids.
“Creative accounting” is one of the most common ways that liberal ideas are able to survive for longer than they should. The huge pension costs of liberalism are hidden from the public. Liberalism/socialism looks nice and “compassionate” in the short-term, but it always bites people in the long-term because it is unsustainable. At some point, they inevitably “run out of other people’s money.”
Liberal voters in Connecticut elected liberals with a total disconnect to fiscal reality. They both get it in the butt sans KY jelly.
Unfortunately the voters mostly remain home. The politicians go to Massachusetts or Washington DC unless they have stole a sufficient amount and then retire to the exile of choice. I would suggest Andorra in the summer and Dubai in the winter. If you are young and can ski, it is Andorra in the winter and any place but Dubai in the summer. Dubai is quite nice in the winter. It is hell in the summer.
There once was a story entitled “The Connecticut Yankee”.
Today that book’s title has been changed to “The Connecticut Commies and Crazies”, and the hero doesn’t win in this one.
i know how to fix the problem- ban guns- it’s the NRA’s fault- everything bad that happens from here on out is the fault of guns
Don’t a bunch of Republicans run that state?
Yeah....hiding it in their offshore bank accounts, I’m sure.
Could start a wave of supplemental property tax increases similar to the one proposed for Illinois.
This is good news for the liberals.
There once was a story entitled “The Connecticut Yankee”.
Is that the full title? The one I remember is “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” by Mark Twain.
“Don’t a bunch of Republicans run that state?”
Very funny..
“..leaving Connecticut in the red by nearly $70 billion, amounting to $53,400 per person in the state.”
Yes, and if each person sent a check to the state for that amount, the debt would just recur within a year. In the meantime, the administrator heavy health care system in Connecticut is paying enormous amounts of money to those not directly involved in taking care of patients.
In 1991, Connecticut instituted an income tax under Governor Lowell Weiker. The governor, who had been a liberal Republican U.S. Senator, ran for governor as an independent. Weiker said upon passage of his income tax plan by the legislature, “”When I sign this budget Connecticut will be closing the book on its past and it’ll be facing toward the future,. . . “.
Unfortunately for the state, the future is now. As Representative Peter J. Fusscas, a Republican from Marlborough, said at the time, the passage of an income tax would bloat state government with new money and new spending. “It lets the genie out of the bottle,” he said. “Once it’s out, it ain’t never going back in.”
When the income tax was enacted the tax rate was 4.5%. Today the rate is 3% for incomes up to $9999. At $10,000 the rate goes to 5% and progresses up to a top rate of 6.99%.
In 1991, when Weiker’s income tax law was passed, the state faced a $2.4 billion deficit. Today the accumulated state debit is over $52 billion.
Weiker retired from politics when his term ended, choosing not to face the voters. His memoir, “Maverick: A Life in Politics” voiced no regrets about imposing the income tax on his state.
Untruthful?
Isn’t the current phrase, “Lack of Candor?”
Gov workers trying to hide how much they’re stealing from the working citizens of CT.
Politicians buying themselves votes with your grandchildren’s money.
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