Posted on 06/25/2017 2:19:19 PM PDT by HarleyLady27
Disgusted with the subway? Well, chew on this: Since 2014, the city has forked over more to its pension funds than it has for building and repairing schools, parks, bridges and, yes, subways — combined.
In fact, the city’s current predicament is the result of benefit increases that state lawmakers have showered on retired city workers. The pension sweeteners added just in 2000 alone cost the city $13 billion over the next 10 years.
These two factors (over-optimistic assumptions and ever-greater benefits) are why the city’s yearly contribution to the funds has had to mushroom nearly sevenfold, from $1.4 billion in the 2002 fiscal year to that $9.6 billion for fiscal 2018.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
WOOHOO...I’ve been waiting for a reply like this...
THIS IS THE PROBLEM!!! In all Democrat Cities, and States we are seeing this happen...in counties where there are leaders who are Dems. we are seeing this happen...
This is the answer...thank you for saying it like it is!!!
Until the Swamp is Drained at all levels of government, the overpaid government worker problem will only get larger and will affect Republican led cities, counties, and states in addition to the Democrat led governments.
The taxpayers need to vote against any politician that is not in favor of cutting government.
The government is bankrupting us and far too many voters don’t believe it will impact them.
One can see this in the academic world. Professor with eight or nine month contracts, work for 25 or 30 years and then five years before retirement become deans, associate deans,
assistant deans, director of this, director that and sign 12 month contracts. With the “promotion” and 50% increase in work year, a rather substantial raise coming. Pension is 2 or 3% per year for each year worked based on the final three or four years of work. Increase in pay could be as high as $50,000. So 0.02X30X50000 = $30,000 increase in pension per year or an increase of $2500 per month for 20 or 30 years not counting any cost of living adjustments.
All the finance professors and pension advisors were touting returns on common stock. A diversified portfolio increased on average 10% a year since the 1930’s. However, past performance is no guarantee of future performance.
And of course bank CDs and government bonds are paying what 1 or 2%. Pension managers need to reevaluate their assumptions about rates of return.
This.
NO PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS.
It’s a gub-mint job on the teat, paid for by TAXPAYERS.
It’s supposed to suck and pay poorly.
Cops used to be “Peace Officers” that stopped Citizens from lynching supposed criminals. Would hold them to face “Justice” in a “Court of Law”.
Volunteer Fire brigades were everywhere, forever, until the Public Unions took over.
Schools made a deal with “Teachers”, do good for a long time and we, the Citizens of the community will reward you with a modest pension. Then The Unions took over.
Every public funding problem is centered on the Unions.
Sky high school taxes, “prevailing wage” construction projects with “over runs”. public pensions for paper pushers, street sweepers, Asst Lt Undersecretary of 2nd Div of the Dept of Blah-bitty-blah-blah, etc . . .
Don’t like it? get a REAL job.
Eff-uuuuus. I ain’t payin’.
Cut off the money to Gub-mint and the problem is solved.
Problem is, YOU work or worked for the Gubmint and think you are owed something. Sorry, no money left.
Uniformed Military gets theirs 100% (bless them and keep them safe), all others? get in line for a “haircut”. Pennies on the dollar folks, pennies . . .
Close the dang border, wages will rise, no need for Unions.
BTW- Guess which group of workers faced ZERO competition from Illegals? That’s right, Gubmint teat suckers.
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The Left is all about sustainable everything. Farming, resource extraction, use of land, etc.
But financial stuff?
Why don’t we throw money at everyone all the time? Or ... would that be a problem?
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The Socialists only believe in ‘sustainable’ if it = more control over other’s lives.
As for pensions, sustainable was NEVER in the thought process....only how to garner votes\man-power and launder those taxpayer $$
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The cops here run up the overtime in their final 2 years because that is what their pension amount is based on.
They all cooperate and wait for their turn. It is a scam and outright theft of the taxpayers money.
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And those with the conflict of interest, I mean paradigms of virtue and stalwarts of the Public $$$, were happy to sign-off on the dotted line in the agreement. What’s it matter to them, it’s only taxpayer $$
I don’t see why this is at all controversial.
The main function of government is to pay sinecures to old people. Pensions, social security old age and survivors benefits, and Medicare consume the lion’s share of government budgets.
I fully expect geezers to argue that they deserve their social security and Medicare because they “paid into the system” for decades. True enough that they paid into it, but US Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that nobody has a property right to social security benefits. Legally, social security is just like any welfare program that can be modified or eliminated by any future Congress. Government pensions, on the other hand, do create an enforceable property right to pension benefits.
True, but I'd like to see them skin that smokewagon, and see what happens...
That's because unsound practices began over the last two decades, put in place by liberal democrat regimes. Those who dole out the pensions conspired with unions to greatly increase pensions. Unions would go before city officials with spreadsheet tables showing their employees (in a particular city) were not in parity with other cities. When they got their increases for this city, the addition to the tables would then be used to demand parity for another city, and so on, lifting pensions for many cities.
In addition, long-used formulas were tossed out and absurd ones replaced them. For instance, requiring a minimum of 20 years of service to attain a certain percentage of salary for pension; this was whittled down to 5 years of service in some instances. Additionally, many cities had a cap on allowed percentage of salary for a pension, say 70 percent; this was altered to almost 95 percent and more in some instances. Additionally, a revision on the age one could begin receiving a pension, down to 50 years of age rather than 60 or 65 years of age. It's all financially unsound for a city to do this, but democrat regimes did it anyway as political favors.
You may have something there (timeline and collusion with other cities).
There was a federal investigation into a number of cities’ corruption. The same high ranked aide to Mayor Lee P. Brown in Houston was tied to at least one or two other cities under investigation (New Orleans and Cleveland among them).
Everywhere it was treated as a local (back page) story but it was a national news item that was suppressed.
Lee Brown took the pension payout to something like 90% (which was soon changed to something lower for new employees).
....
Corruption probe here broadens to 3 states
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
John Caniglia
Oliver Spellman, the Cleveland parks director under former Mayor Michael R. White, was charged Tuesday with accepting bribes from Beachwood consultant Nate Gray in exchange for political favors in Houston, where Spellman was the mayor’s chief of staff.
The charges, along with interviews and court documents, show that a sweeping public corruption investigation focusing on Gray has spread beyond the borders of Cuyahoga County to Texas and Louisiana.
In Houston, Gray paid Spellman $2,000 and gave him a free hotel stay in Las Vegas and other gifts to land a contract for Gray’s business, Etna Parking, to provide shuttle-bus service at Houston Intercontinental Airport, according to records filed by prosecutors.
Etna Parking has a similar contract at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
Spellman also lobbied another unidentified Houston official to help Gray get a contract for Honeywell Inc., authorities said.
The charges do not identify Gray by name but refer to a consultant who met Spellman when the two worked in Cleveland. Prosecutors filed a document Tuesday that says the consultant who bribed Spellman is the consultant who they say bribed former East Cleveland Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor for contracts. Investigators testified in Onunwor’s trial that Gray is the consultant who bribed Onunwor, but Gray has not been charged.
The charges against Spellman, 51, are the prosecutors’ latest blows to Gray, the political consultant and parking magnate who made his name collecting contracts during White’s administration.
In New Orleans, sources say, Gray is under investigation for his ties to Gilbert Jackson, a politically active consultant who was indicted this week on charges of evading taxes on more than $500,000.
In Cleveland, court documents say, Gray and an unidentified consultant bribed Cleveland City Councilman Joseph Jones in exchange for favors at City Hall. Jones was indicted last month.
In the East Cleveland case, Onunwor is to be sentenced next week and could get more than 10 years in prison.
Gray declined to comment Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors said Spellman, of Friendswood, Texas, was the chief of staff to Houston Mayor Lee Brown for 10 months in 2002, enabling him to “exert formal and informal influence over decisions in Houston to award public contracts,” according to the charges. He resigned Oct. 24, 2002, citing personal reasons.
Today, he works as the chief of staff for a Harris County commissioner in Houston. Neither Spellman nor his attorney could be reached for comment. A spokesman for Houston Mayor Bill White, who took office in January, declined to comment. Brown, the former mayor, could not be reached.
Spellman was director of parks, recreation and properties in Cleveland in the mid-1990s. He left in 1998 to become parks director in Houston, bumping his pay from $86,755 to $105,000.
Four years later, Houston city records and interviews show, Gray’s Etna Parking won the Houston airport shuttle-bus contract. But Gray lost out on the contract for Honeywell.
“We’re aware of the federal investigation concerning Mr. Gray,” said Mark Hamel, a spokesman for Honeywell. “We consider this a very serious matter, and we’re cooperating fully with the federal prosecutor in Cleveland.”
He said Gray worked as a contract consultant. He stressed that authorities have told the company that it is not a target in the case. Asked if any employees are, Hamel declined to comment.
Authorities are examining Gray’s relationship with Jackson, vice president of Camp, Dresser & McKee, a national engineering firm. Employees in the firm’s New Orleans office, including Jackson, have testified before a federal grand jury. The prosecutor who handled Jackson’s case, Mary Butler of the U.S. Justice Department, is working closely with Cleveland prosecutors in the Gray investigation.
L. Eades Hogue, attorney for Camp, Dresser & McKee, said the business has cooperated with the grand jury and federal prosecutors in Cleveland, but he insisted that it was not a subject or target of the investigation.
It is unclear how Gray, 46, hooked up with Jackson, though they have been described as friends. In August 2003, Gray gave $2,500 to the campaign of Jackson’s then-girlfriend, Lynda Van Davis, who won an Orleans Parish Criminal Court judgeship. The couple have since married.
Cleveland City Councilman Zack Reed also contributed $250 to Van Davis’ campaign. Reed said Jackson, a visitor to Cleveland in the past, asked for the contribution. Reed called Gray and Jackson his friends.
News researchers Cheryl Diamond and Jo Ellen Corrigan contributed to this story.
I know for a fact that unions conspired with reps in different cities to increase pensions. But don't know about collusion of city officials in different cities conspiring with each other to increase pensions; it probably does happen. If so, they need to be investigated and charged, because schemes such as these illegally enrich said officials to the detriment of tax-payers.
with the kind of forethought lacking in these programs at their inception, its a wonder we still have a country...
sure, demographics caught up with the military and the federali pension and the state and county, etc...
but even 20 yrs ago if SOMETHING was done...a cap here....starting a pension a couple years later...stopping the add on junket years where they pile up their seniority....anything might have helped...
nurses except those working in the VA or military bases/univerisities, etc DO NOT GET defined pensions for the most part...why, out of all the community “workers” nurses were left out, I don’t know, but maybe because they’re mostly women...
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