Don’t wait for next bankruptcy wave
A new op-ed published in the Vallejo Times-Herald highlights the devastating effects that the public pension crisis can have on communities. A slice:
When public pension systems miss their investment target, taxpayers are required to make up the difference, and the actions described above represent some of the hard choices that are facing local governments. Soaring pension costs have already forced many agencies to cut core services. In 2011, for example, the city of Stockton announced it was going to lay off 116 police and fire employees, before eventually filing for bankruptcy the following year.
Making the problem worse, the weakening market comes at a time when many agencies are already paying record-high contribution levels.
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Presently, Vallejo is paying CalPERS a staggering 60 cents per dollar of police and fire officers’ salary in retirement costs, which is projected to rise to 75 cents in the next five years — in large part to help fund average $125,000 pensions for recent, full-career retirees, according to data from TransparentCalifornia.com.
Experts across the ideological spectrum have sharply criticized U.S. public pension systems for utilizing a funding strategy that is heavily reliant on investment returns. Scholars from the Brookings Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Reserve Board, the Congressional Budget Office and Moody’s Investors Service all agree that public pensions are using inappropriately high discount rates that promote excessive risk-taking. Nobel-laureate professor William F. Sharpe was particularly blunt, describing the use of a 7.5 percent rate as “crazy” and based on “idiotic accounting.”
Public pensions prefer higher investment targets because they make their debt appear smaller. The downside is that they must average annual investment returns at that rate in order to be fully funded — a gamble far too risky to fund a guaranteed pension.
Be sure to read the full piece here.
Vallejo’s 2015 CalPERS pension payouts can be found here.