Pensions killing NY

Connecticut, Illinois and Hawaii are among the states with the highest combined debt and pension liabilities, according to a study to be released on Thursday by Moody’s Investors Service.

“These costs are serious and they are growing,” said Robert Kurtter, managing director of the state and local government finance group at Moody’s. “If they are addressed [by the states] they are manageable.”

The rating agency acknowledged that these figures “may be understated” but added that some of the larger estimates include the unfunded liabilities of local governments.

States tend to use an annual return assumption of 8 per cent, higher than those used by corporate pension plans. Some plans can also average gains and losses over a number of years through a process known as smoothing. Studies using more conservative accounting have valued the US public pension gap upwards of $1,000bn.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e3bdbc1a-29ae-11e0-bb9b-00144feab49a.html#axzz1BuhwR3is

....and New York is NOT one of the worst, despite 902 posts on this topic. Nor is California.

"Under its new method, Moody’s found that the states with the biggest total indebtedness included Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey and Rhode Island...

...Other big states that have had trouble balancing their budgets lately, like New York and California, tended to fare better in the new rankings."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/business/27pension.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=moody%27s&st=cse

I was waiting for someone to pick up on that obvious point.
I wonder what the affect would be at the local level.

yep, jason. city and state finances are just peachy in ny. no worries here.

Does jason actually think that NY's pension liabilities aren't a problem for its budget?? Wow.

""Under its new method, Moody’s found that the states with the biggest total indebtedness included Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey and Rhode Island..."

How did Mississippi get in there? Isn't that a Republican state with virtually no unions? Yet again another state run by tax and spend Republicans.

Maybe Jason bit his fingers too.

***************THE FACTS*****************
Future New York City workers wouldn’t receive full retirement benefits until age 65 and couldn’t count overtime in calculating retirement pay under proposals by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg offered the plan at a meeting yesterday with the Municipal Labor Committee, composed of the unions representing the city’s 300,000 workers, his press office said in an e-mail. The changes, some of which the mayor has suggested in the past, have been opposed by union leaders. While the proposal would need state lawmakers to create a “new tier” of pensions applicable to future workers, current employees would keep their benefits.

Pension costs will amount to about 12 percent of New York City’s $67.5 billion budget for the year beginning July 1, according to the spending plan. Annual costs, now about $7.5 billion, are expected to increase to about $9 billion by 2016, from $1.4 billion in 2002, the mayor has said.
******************AND THE UNION CRIES AND ACTS OF ENTITLEMENT*********************
“It’s clearly a sign that the mayor doesn’t care whether he has a relationship with the city workforce,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents more than 100,000 school employees. “He’s changed his tone and it’s completely disrespectful.”

Union’s Agreement

Mulgrew said that in 2009 the union agreed to save the city $100 million a year with future members getting reduced pension benefits and longer service requirements before retiree eligibility for health care.

“He always leaves out the fact that this problem was caused by Wall Street’s meltdown, not anything the workers did,” Mulgrew said. He vowed to persuade the Legislature in Albany to reject Bloomberg’s proposals.

“We won’t even discuss it with the mayor,” Mulgrew said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-03/new-york-city-pensions-would-change-for-future-workers-under-mayor-s-plan.html

Maybe newer teachers should form their own union, if the older workers and retirees are willing to sell out the new teachers just to prop up their own legacy excess benefits.

"“He always leaves out the fact that this problem was caused by Wall Street’s meltdown, not anything the workers did,” "

Now, that's funny. Pretending the cost of the benefits in the contract were created by Wall Street.

Mulgrew is an idiot.

Stop it.

How many stupid useless negative posts in a row?

"Pretending the cost of the benefits in the contract were created by Wall Street."

Employee pensins were invested in Wall St. and thanks to irresponsibility on Wall St., the pension funds took a big hit. As a result, most state pensions are underfunded.

Stock market and bond market are back to previous levels. Melgrew was probably bitching that Wall Street firms were not generating the taxes required to help fund pensions and further complaining that the unions should not give up benefits as a result of the New York tax base contracting. Since the stock market has come back pension assets are probably at pre-2008 levels. Bottom line is that the present value of the future pension obligations are way above the invested assets. The elected officials managing state pensions can't assume away the under-funded pensions. There are two choices, increase taxes by 30% or better align pension obligations with the monies they do have. Of course there is a third option, do nothing and watch the money run out.

socialist is clueless again. Shocking . . .

Alpo, again talking about a topic he knows nothing about.

"Melgrew was probably bitching that Wall Street firms were not generating the taxes required to help fund pensions"

Yes. He's a total douche.

The bipartisan Little Hoover Commission recommended today that California state and local governments roll back pensions for existing employees, dump guaranteed retirement payouts and put more of the pension burden on workers.

Although any attempt to reduce pensions for current workers would prompt a legal battle, the commission says that public pension funds are in such dire financial straits that they'll never right themselves by reducing benefits for new hires. The recommendation would not affect current retirees. Click here to read the commission's 106-page report.

The most controversial Hoover proposal would allow state and local governments to freeze existing employee pension benefits and then lower them for future years worked.

Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2011/02/commissions-plan-rolls-back-pe.html#ixzz1EyDvBPru

Get rid of all the freaking unions, especially the teacher's union. Just strange to me that no matter how bad the teacher is, the union always stick up for that person and blames the mayor or governor or someone else.

"The bipartisan Little Hoover Commission recommended today that California state and local governments roll back pensions for existing employees, dump guaranteed retirement payouts and put more of the pension burden on workers."

I gues someone forgot to tell them about those pieces of paper we call "contracts."

Look up the standard required to enter into a contract.

Here's more collective stupidity. The unions gets the tax-payer to pay teachers not to teach. Tax payer money is subsidizing activities union benefits should. The Mayor's office and the teacher's union should explain this one.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/union_classic_le_en_jrQKCmKdjWQbMAtzqHASxI

The Department of Education pays about 1,500 teachers for time they spend on union activities -- and pays other teachers to replace them in the classroom.

It's a sweetheart deal that costs taxpayers an extra $9 million a year to pay fill-ins for instructors who are sprung -- at full pay -- to carry out responsibilities for the United Federation of Teachers.

With Mayor Bloomberg calling for thousands of teacher layoffs to balance the 2012 budget, critics say it's time to halt the extravagant benefit.
Tom Dropmgoole: Manhattan high schools`
Alex Rud
Tom Dropmgoole: Manhattan high schools`
DOE Salary: $100,049
UTF Salary: $50,461

"In these tight fiscal times, it defies common sense to pay two different people to do one job," said Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, a government watchdog. "It's a waste of money."

That $9 million would cover the salaries of 198 new teachers at the current annual $45,530 starting pay

The DOE lets 40 experienced teachers collect top pay and fringe benefits, but work just one class period a day.

Under a contract agreement since 2003, the DOE excuses these veterans to work for the UFT -- currently 38 as district representatives and two as union vice presidents. The UFT pays them another salary, plus expenses.

Time for NY to react like Indiana a couple of years ago and hopefully Wisconsin can pull off the same. Never understand why the parents actually stick up for the Teacher's Union?

Why do you think? Because they are familiar with the schools situation and know first-hand that this whole notion of huge numbers of "bad" teachers is total horseshit.

>Never understand why the parents actually stick up for the Teacher's Union?
>Why do you think?

For the same reason parents send kids away to summer camp.
Parents are happy that someone will take care of their kids.

Yes, alan believes that once a person becomes a teacher they magically become immune from any human failings and it becomes impossible for them to be a bad teacher.

This is the wacko liberal mentality.

There are a lot of teachers who after they get tenure, do as little as possible, and then spend all their efforts at making sure the contracts protect their right to do nothing. Teacher's aren't rich while they work, but have an extremely generous benefits package.

is this your opinion or you do have some youtubian support?

Do you have a source for that Riversider?

How do you identify "bad" teachers anyway? And if you say test sores I will jump out of a winodow. If a school in a low income area is failing, does that mean every teacher is bad?

Yes, I know some teachers.

what does that mean?

And just an FYI: virtually all of the countries with better education systems than the U.S. have teachers' unions.

Do they also get two hour Warcraft breaks?

First, I haven't noticed that NYC is dead or dying.

Second,
"In the midst of financial crises, well-financed anti-union campaigns have created a popular image of public sector employees as lazy, underperforming, and overpaid. The media love long-running features on “bad examples” of public sector employees. Consider the sensational stories about obscenely large salaries, pensions, or disability benefits paid to a few public employees. Sometimes these lush payments result from a union contract, but more often the recipients are high-level bureaucrats with opaque individual contracts.

Unrelenting publicity, often politically motivated, helps transfer that anger to entire categories of Americans. As a result, “union members” are smeared with accusations of sensational benefits and unwarranted political power. In fact, most public sector employees and retirees worry about their livelihoods, retirement, supporting their families, and they are astonished that their fellow Americans think otherwise."

For the full article, go to

http://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/newsroom/our-ideas/themes-in-the-news

MartinOne -- How dare you bring rationality and another viewpoint to this discussion! Prepare to be savaged by several on this board who see unions, the government and taxes as the source of every economic problem with have. For them, picking out scapegoats is a lot easier than suggesting solutions to complex issues.

schools and teaching is over rated.

Lord of the Flies should serve as our template.
Drop off the kids on a deserted island and allowing them to 'actualize' their potential without the interference of some ignorant moron pretending to educate your child.

excuse my piggy, are these your spectacles?

MartinOne: just mindlessly repeat the accepted fictions of the KochHeads. Go get all Koched up and you'll understand.

>MartinOne -- How dare you bring rationality and another viewpoint to this discussion! Prepare to be savaged by several on this board who see unions, the government and taxes as the source of every economic problem with have. For them, picking out scapegoats is a lot easier than suggesting solutions to complex issues.

Martin, until you showed up, as MidtownerEast suggested, there's been only one point of view here, and absolutely nothing else. Thank you for finally enfranchising MidtownerEast, thank you for giving him a voice. We need to hear more from "him" and less from the Koch brothers who are posting here relentlessly.

Also, columbiacounty needs a politician to stand up and lead us in song.

We need to hunt down KochHeads, inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway.

You go girl!

Across the country, taxpayers are providing pensions, benefits and job security protections for public workers that almost no one in the private sector enjoys. Taxpayers simply cannot afford to continue paying these costs, which are growing at rates far outpacing inflation. Yes, public sector workers need a secure retirement. And yes, taxpayers need top-quality police officers, teachers and firefighters. It’s the job of government to balance those competing needs. But for a variety of reasons, the scale has been increasingly tipping away from taxpayers.

Correcting this imbalance is not easy, but in a growing number of states, budget deficits are being used to justify efforts to scale back not only labor costs, but labor rights. The impulse is understandable; public sector unions all too often stand in the way of reform. But unions also play a vital role in protecting against abuses in the workplace, and in my experience they are integral to training, deploying and managing a professional work force.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/opinion/28mayor.html?hp

In New York City, we share the same goal as cities and states across the nation — less spending and better services. We, too, are seeking to legislate changes to reduce pension and benefit costs and modernize our labor laws. But in some cases, we believe expanding collective bargaining would be more beneficial than trying to eliminate it.

For example, in New York, state government — not the city — has the authority to set pension benefits for city workers, but city taxpayers get stuck with the bill. The mayor cannot directly discuss pension benefits as part of contract negotiations with unions, even though pension benefits could be as much as 80 percent of an employee’s overall compensation. In addition, members of the State Legislature pass pension “sweeteners” for municipal unions that help attract support for their re-election campaigns.

These are problems that mayors around the country also face. In New York City, taxpayers will be forced to pay $8.3 billion in pension costs this year, up from $1.5 billion 10 years ago. Our proposal to the state is simple: legislate lower costs this year and, going forward, give us the authority to negotiate fair pension savings ourselves.

Pensions are not the only area where we would like to expand our collective bargaining authority in order to modernize government. New York is one of only a dozen or so states with a law requiring layoffs of teachers based strictly on seniority — a policy that’s known as “last in, first out.” In New York City, we are preparing to lay off workers across city agencies, including 4,500 teachers. And the only thing worse than laying off teachers would be laying off the wrong teachers — some of our very best.

That’s why we are asking the state to give us the legal authority to collectively bargain a layoff policy with the teachers’ union — and in the meantime, to conduct layoffs based on common-sense factors like eliminating teachers who have been rated unsatisfactory, found guilty of criminal charges or failed to meet professional certification requirements.

To the extent that collective bargaining agreements or state laws are no longer serving the public, we should change them. That is what democracy is all about — and that is our responsibility. The job of labor leaders is to get the best deal for their members. The job of elected officials is to get the best deal for all citizens.

Let's make it simpler. Today's working union members are subsidizing the older union member's excessive and abusive pensions. Older workers in the MTA or the police department (how many of them retired with disability?) padded their overtime and their pensions, and their giveback to the agency and the state was that newer contracts could start at lower salaries or benefits.

More propaganda from Riversider. Only in teabagger land does taking away collective bargaining save money. What do you want, for unions to go on strike after every contract expires? Because that is what will happen without collective bargaining.

Have to admit, it's pretty messed up. The State has to ok the agreements and the city gets stuck funding them, while the city unions throw their support behind state leaders who continue the process.
Bloomberg is right.

Bloomberg is a pathetic corporatist. He wants to do away with the civil service system and change it to a crony based hiring system.

Bloomberg also whines about how the school system is full of bad teachers, but he has yet to pony up the evidence that they exist. If there are indeed bad teachers, then maybe that it is Bloomberg's fault for not toughening the requirements to become a teacher.

Socialist- does anyone take anything you say seriously? You are so extreme it is buffoonish. You are actually claiming that bad teachers don't exist!!!

You may want to see this country bankrupted into joblessness and despair, but most Americans want it to continue the principles that have made it the greatest nation in history- individual responsibility, equal opportunity, democracy and freedom.

"You may want to see this country bankrupted into joblessness and despair"

Hasn't that already happened? With a $14 trillion debt and real unemployment of 16%, haven't I won?

The only thing that will save this country is if it completely collapses, this way it can be re-built. Obama should make his #1 goal to double the national debt and to raise unemployment to 50% in order to make everyone dependent on the govt. to survive.

> You are actually claiming that bad teachers don't exist

Well, how would someone who never quite got 3rd grade right know?

somehow when workers organized to form unions and prevent sweatshops and unsafe working conditions, I think they left, tenure without regard to job performance, the funding of political candidates, two hour union mandated lunches and retirement at age 50.

How ironic that Wisconsin has become ground zero for the battle between taxpayers and public- employee labor unions. Wisconsin was the first state to allow collective bargaining for government workers (in 1959), following a tradition where it was the first to introduce a personal income tax (in 1911, before the introduction of the current form of individual income tax in 1913 by the federal government).

Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.

In fact, labor unions were subject to U.S. antitrust laws in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which was first applied in 1894 to the American Railway Union. However, organized labor managed to obtain exemption from federal antitrust laws in subsequent legislation, notably the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

*********************************

The current pushback against labor-union power stems from the collision between overly generous benefits for public employees— notably for pensions and health care—and the fiscal crises of state and local governments. Teachers and other public-employee unions went too far in convincing weak or complicit state and local governments to agree to obligations, particularly defined-benefit pension plans, that created excessive burdens on taxpayers.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704150604576166011983939364.html

States are in the toilt because of massive drops in revenue, not because of union contracts. Of the 100 largest corporations in the U.S., 83 did not pay any income taxes.

"the funding of political candidates,"

I also agree that unions should not fund political andiates. Let's have publicly funded electons. No more union money AND no more corporate money.

States are in the toilt because of massive drops in revenue, not because of union contracts. Of the 100 largest corporations in the U.S., 83 did not pay any income taxes.

Did your union rep tell you this? Or are you the union rep?

BANK OF AMERICA: In 2009, Bank of America didn’t pay a single penny in federal income taxes, exploiting the tax code so as to avoid paying its fair share. “Oh, yeah, this happens all the time,” said Robert Willens, a tax accounting expert interviewed by McClatchy. “If you go out and try to make money and you don’t do it, why should the government pay you for your losses?” asked Bob McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice. The same year, the mega-bank’s top executives received pay “ranging from $6 million to nearly $30 million.”

- BOEING: Despite receiving billions of dollars from the federal government every single year in taxpayer subsidies from the U.S. government, Boeing didn’t “pay a dime of U.S. federal corporate income taxes” between 2008 and 2010.

- CITIGROUP: Citigroup’s deferred income taxes for the third quarter of 2010 amounted to a grand total of $0.00. At the same time, Citigroup has continued to pay its staff lavishly. “John Havens, the head of Citigroup’s investment bank, is expected to be the bank’s highest paid executive for the second year in a row, with a compensation package worth $9.5 million.”

- EXXON-MOBIL: The oil giant uses offshore subsidiaries in the Caribbean to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Although Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, not a penny of those taxes went to the American Treasury. This was the same year that the company overtook Wal-Mart in the Fortune 500. Meanwhile the total compensation of Exxon-Mobil’s CEO the same year was over $29,000,000.

- GENERAL ELECTRIC: In 2009, General Electric — the world’s largest corporation — filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to U.S. government. They managed to do this by a tax code that essentially subsidizes companies for losing profits and allows them to set up tax havens overseas. That same year GE CEO Jeffery Immelt — who recently scored a spot on a White House economic advisory board — “earned total compensation of $9.89 million.” In 2002, Immelt displayed his lack of economic patriotism, saying, “When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China….I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from China is going to grow to 5 billion.”

- WELLS FARGO: Despite being the fourth largest bank in the country, Wells Fargo was able to escape paying federal taxes by writing all of its losses off after its acquisition of Wachovia. Yet in 2009 the chief executive of Wells Fargo also saw his compensation “more than double” as he earned “a salary of $5.6 million paid in cash and stock and stock awards of more than $13 million.”

www.thinkprogress.org

Socialist, is the concern that banks that didn't make any money didn't pay taxes, or that CEOs didn't make as much as hedge fund managers?

Socialist admitted above what he wants for America. This clearly shows why he is considered a total buffoon on these boards.

Socialist, surely those corporations that weaseled out of paying income taxes got hit hard with the Alternative Minimum Tax, right? Right?

Policy makers across the country are considering scrapping guaranteed retirement benefits for public workers in favor of 401(k)-like plans.

In pursuing the switch, some state and local governments hope to shift more responsibility and risk—as well as potential reward—to employees. But some are discovering that closing down a pension plan can carry hefty costs.

Many say 401(k)-style plans can yield meaningful cost savings over time if employer contributions are substantially reduced from what they were, and relieve governments of the obligation to make guaranteed payouts. Yet shorter-term pain can result from such a switch.

In a 401(k)-style plan, each employee decides where to invest the funds and at retirement will have a sum of money reflecting how much was contributed and how the investments fared. In a traditional pension plan, administrators choose where to put the money, and employees receive a set payout at retirement regardless of how well or poorly the funds were invested.

Utah and Michigan last year launched hybrid plans for new employees, which combine a 401(k)-type component with a guaranteed benefit. In Utah, workers also can enroll in a plan akin to a 401(k).

Michigan officials estimate the switch to a hybrid plan,which is for new teachers, will save the state's public-school system between $2 million and $4 million in fiscal year 2011 and between $200 million and $400 million over 10 years. Utah officials project the move will save the state $5 million a year for every 1,000 new employees, potentially bringing $180 million in savings by 2018.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704444604576172910048864744.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

Whoever it was who came up with the phrase "golden years" might have had Bruce Malkenhorst Sr. in mind.

The retired city administrator of Vernon, Calif., pulls down a pension of $43,320.53 a month - or close to $520,000 a year - through the underfunded California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), which covers about half of all government workers in the state and is the nation's largest public pension administrator.

Malkenhorst receives that princely stipend by virtue of having held six four-day-a-week jobs at the same time in Vernon, a speck of an industrial town just south of Los Angeles. He was Vernon's city manager, city clerk, finance director, treasurer, redevelopment agency secretary and director of light and power.

Deals like the one he got rankle Californians at a time when the state's public employee pension plans are "dangerously underfunded, the result of overly generous benefit promises, wishful thinking and an unwillingness to plan prudently," a government-appointed panel of experts, the Little Hoover Commission, warned last month.

California is far from alone. Cities and states across the country are grappling with potentially crushing health and pension obligations for their current and future retirees. And as they do, stories of excess and gaming of the system are getting more attention than they have in the past, causing problems for unions as they try to win the battle for public opinion in states where lawmakers are trying to cut worker pay and benefits.

"He's a bad actor," said Steven Kreisberg, director of collective bargaining for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "It does inspire taxpayer angst. When people look at it, they don't think it's appropriate - and neither do we."
-------------------------------------------------------

It should probably be no surprise that the elected officials who designed state and local retirement systems often benefit the most.

Veteran legislators in Minnesota joke about doing a "high five" when the governor appoints one of them to a six-figure post as head of a state commission. It means that his pension, calculated on the average of his five highest-earning years, will be significantly higher than what he would have earned had he closed out his career as a $31,140-a-year representative or senator.

Fueling the backlash is the fact that the retirement system for government workers, especially on the state and local level, has become by many measures a significantly better deal than that available to most people who work for the private sector.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Public-sector workers frequently can retire earlier, often in their 40s and 50s, receiving pension checks even as they go on to another career - or sometimes, "double-dipping" in their old one.

Some public employees end up getting paid more in retirement than they did during their working years, thanks to pension-benefit formulas that encourage practices such as "spiking," the inflation of salary and overtime payments in the final years before retirement.

Last year, New York's then-Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo - now the governor - investigated pension-padding and found cases in which government employees who had never worked overtime in the early years of their career clocked more than 1,000 hours of it as their retirement neared. Cuomo said the abuse transcended "occupation, region or job title."

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in January proposed banning the practice, but only for new employees. Unlike private employers, state and local governments are generally prohibited from changing the retirement benefits that they have already promised current workers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/08/AR2011030802528.html

Cuomo won't do shit. Now that he is elected, he is not going to change or do anything that will harm his re-election in a few years. Just take a look at the Teacher's union debate. He is completely silent on LIFO issue because he wants those union votes in a few short years.

Double dipping occurs everywhere. Just saw one from Arnold Diaz on those schmucks in Albany collecting their pensions while holding the same position.

How come we, the taxpayers, have no say on pays and pensions while we foot the bills to these A-holes? SEC is changing the rules for shareholders, shouldn't we have the same as taxpayers?

"Last year, New York's then-Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo - now the governor - investigated pension-padding and found cases in which government employees who had never worked overtime in the early years of their career clocked more than 1,000 hours of it as their retirement neared. Cuomo said the abuse transcended "occupation, region or job title."

What? Cuomo actualy investigated that? HELLO.. eveyrbody knows that happens. It's not some sort of closely held sevret. My father more than doubled the amount of hours he worked during his last year. For that year, I think he was one of the highest paid subway condcutors in the whole system.

and on a side note, I don't see how limiting overitme saves money. If you can't work a lot of overtime to increase your pension, nobody will do it and then you will have to hire more employees, which costs MORE money than paying overtime since you have to pay the health benefits of those new employees.

socialist, you're head is so far up your ass i cant tell which hole this crap is spewing from....

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate voted Wednesday night to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers after discovering a way to bypass the chamber's missing Democrats.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/03/09/us/AP-US-Wisconsin-Budget-Unions.html?ref=politics

Here's what one teachers union fought for
----------------------------------------------------

The Milwaukee teachers union has dropped a lawsuit seeking to get its taxpayer-funded Viagra back.

The union sued in July 2010 to force the school board to again include the erectile dysfunction drug and similar pills in its health insurance plans.

The union has argued the board's policy of excluding such drugs from the plans discriminates against male employees; the board has countered the 2005 move was meant to save money.

Court records indicate the union, the school board and the state labor commission agreed to dismiss the lawsuit on March 1. A spokesman for the state Justice Department, which is representing the commission, declined comment. Attorneys for the union and school board didn't immediately return messages.

http://host.madison.com/news/state_and_regional/article_a4e799cf-71bb-5104-a22a-ef063c54373e.html

I hope the contract allows discounted condoms.

Well, Cathy Black is hoping for birth control.

This almost always seems to involve public pensions and not private ones...

-------------------------
The deal came together behind the doors of a Louisiana psychiatric ward. John Skannal, 74, signed a document in October 2003 authorizing the sale of land handed down through eight generations of his family.

The buyer was a statewide pension plan for municipal law officers. The fund assembled golf and real estate holdings that lost 84 cents on each dollar the police spent on them over 10 years. The losses are emblematic of a decade in which the $1.2 billion program went from fully funded to $836.3 million short of meeting future retirement obligations.

The nine trustees of the Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System made a series of decisions that taxpayers and 10,748 active and retired cops are now paying for. The board embraced bad investments, ignored warnings of weak financial controls that enabled its attorney to steal $1.2 million and set up conflicts of interest among its advisers, according to a review of thousands of pages of documents obtained under the state public records act and more than 50 interviews.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-15/losing-84-cents-on-dollar-reveals-runaway-u-s-public-pension-shortfalls.html

Former state comptroller Alan Hevesi was sentenced to one to four years in prison for his role in a sweeping corruption scandal revolving around New York State’s pension fund.

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/04/15/hevesi-sentenced-to-prison-in-pay-to-play-scandal/

Wish we could have a do-over on Alan Hevesi. Sad.

Average balances of 401(k) retirement plans reached the highest level since Fidelity Investments began tracking account values in 1998.

The average account balance in the U.S. rose to $74,900 as of March 31, an increase of almost 12 percent from last year, according to a report released today by the Boston-based mutual- fund manager. Fidelity, the largest provider of 401(k)s, has 11 million participants in almost 16,500 employer-sponsored defined contribution plans.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-11/average-u-s-401-k-balances-reach-highest-level-fidelity-says.html

That's great news. You should have no problem whatsoever living off of $74,900 for the rest of your life.

“A lot of people will say $74,000 on average is not that great,” McHugh said. “If you look at those that are 10-year continuous participants, their average balance is about $191,000, and if they’re age 55 years or older and are a 10-year continuous participant their average is about $233,800.”

Better hope the market does not plummet again, which I guarantee it will once the student loan bubble bursts.

Agree on edu loan bubble, and the edu bubble that fuels it. Not much can be done with a U of Phoenix or Walden U, or Berkeley College or NYU degree that 30 years ago couldn't have been better taught at Katherine Gibbs or TCI Coilege.

Better hope the market does not plummet again, which I guarantee it will once the student loan bubble bursts.

Because public pensions don't invest in stocks?

Only in gov't could lifeguards earn 200k a year get a suntan allowance and retire at age 50.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5FytHY2qhc

Only on Wall St. could an i-banker earn $500k a year get a restaurant allownace and retire at age 40.

http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2010/08/12/mommy-mommy-when-i-grow-up-i-want-to-be-a-federal-worker/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/nyregion/cuomo-proposes-tough-limits-on-pensions.html

Wading into one of the most controversial and challenging issues facing state and municipal governments, Mr. Cuomo said New York State and New York City simply could no longer afford to offer new employees the generous benefits their predecessors received.

“The numbers speak for themselves — the pension system as we know it is unsustainable,” the governor said in a statement. “This bill institutes common-sense reforms to bring government benefits more in line with the private sector while still serving our employees and protecting our retirees.”

Under Mr. Cuomo’s proposal, pensions for new workers would still be enviable by the standards of the private sector, but a significant change would be made in worker retirement plans. He proposes to increase the retirement age to 65 from 62, and to require state workers to contribute 6 percent of their salaries to pensions. And in an effort to curb rampant padding of pensions by workers who step up their overtime in their final year of employment, Mr. Cuomo’s proposal would exclude overtime from pension calculations.

I see Cuomo is taking advice from Chris Christie again.

Good to hear.

Reducing pensions for new hires saves virtually no money in the short term. Cutting pensions for new workers will not yield significant savings until those workers retire well into the future.

The reality is that the pension issue is both a cash flow and present value issue.

>Cutting pensions for new workers will not yield significant savings until those workers retire well into the future.

So your position is we need to retroactively cut pensions?

The reality is riversider doesnt' understand the concept of PV = Stream of Cash Flow / IR........ and the dude doesn't see the hypocrisy of cashing his SS checks and bitching about the gov't overspending?

With fktards like him, it's a wonder we let everyone vote, including Palin, Weiner and Riversider.. .throw PT Cruise Driver Socialist/Alpie... You do know the one common thread amongst all these fkers....

A: THEY think RE is still a GOOD BUY, at least for them. Fktards

Aren't you a landlord?

NY state law does not allow for retroactive pension cuts.

Interestingly NJ just campe up with a new pension system today and their plan raises contribtions for CURRENT workers. The NJ plan will save money. The NY one will not.

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/06/08/n-j-nears-deal-to-slash-pensions-benefits/

>NY state law does not allow for retroactive pension cuts.

That's right, we would need to change the law. Since you said that the cuts to new workers are not sufficient, are you advocating we change the law so that we can have retroactive pension cuts?

No, I am not. NY actually has one of the best funded pension systems in the country. NJ, however, has one of the most UNDERfunded pensions. Christie skipped a $3 billion pension payment last year, and then bragged that he balanced the budget without raising taxes. For 2011, Christie is only contributing $500 million. So under Christie, the pension system is missing $5.5 billion.

You seem too focused on New Jersey. Most of us here don't really care much about New Jersey.

I answered the question you asked me yesterday. That's what you wanted, no?

And it came from a Democrat.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/business/16pension.html

Last week, New York’s governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, proposed that all future state and New York City employees pay 6 percent of their salary toward their pensions, double the current 3 percent. Oregon’s Democratic governor is pushing state and local employees to contribute as much as 6 percent of pay, up from zero at present. Twelve states, including Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia, imposed higher employee contributions in 2010. That leaves just a handful of states where employees do not contribute toward their pensions.

States are demanding the higher contributions as they reach for new ways to cut budget deficits. The easy savings, like furlough days, have been achieved, and now lawmakers are tackling more complicated cost issues like the long-term shortfalls in their pension funds.

The Pew Center on the States estimates there is a more than $1 trillion funding gap for government workers’ retirement benefits in the 50 states. At the same time, many voters resent that public employee pensions are generally better than their own.

“States have less revenues coming in and higher bills for their pensions, and it’s really focused their attention,” said Susan K. Urahn, managing director of the Pew center, a nonpartisan research group.

Christie isn't cutting fast enough...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-27/new-jersey-seeking-jpmorgan-loan-for-cash-shortfall-wsj-says.html

New Jersey officials are negotiating a temporary bank loan with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) of as much as $2.25 billion to cover a revenue gap in its new fiscal year, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the deal.

The state is considering tapping a so-called bridge loan, or credit line, to cover bills coming due early in the year beginning July 1 as it prepares to sell tax-revenue anticipation notes to cover expenses until it collects taxes, the newspaper said on its website. The notes would repay the bank loan.

The newspaper said state officials are negotiating with JPMorgan following competition for the business. A bank spokesman, whom the newspaper didn’t identify, declined to comment. A spokesman for New Jersey, also unidentified, also declined to comment.

> The easy savings, like furlough days, have been achieved, and now lawmakers are tackling more complicated cost issues like the long-term shortfalls in their pension funds.

well, it had to happen as pensions are the biggest deficit drivers. i continue thinking that what will be cut first is its main driver of increases: health care costs and it'll be cut first for those that can have medicare to fall back on, those that are 65+.

in nyc health care benefits already represent as much as the actual pension check that the public retiree gets. imho that check will be the last to be cut as it's the part protected by constitutions and it's the most visible part (health care benefits are generally not protected from cuts).

talking about health care, i came across a guy that told me he put his perfectly healthy mother on a nursing home paid by her NYC teacher's pension. is that possible!? she sold her house when moving, and if i understood well, part of that $ when into the nursing home (this might be called "adult assisted living").

now he wants to find another place for his mom, as this facility is becoming a depressing place to live. it's being more and more populated by elderly on medicaid that are very sick. with the rising costs of nursing homes, it's not really a surprise imho. wonder if anybody knows about health care benefits for retirees in the public sector covering nursing homes costs.

Her retirement benefits from NYC don't include health care. What she spends her pension on is up to her.

To see what her pension is, check www.seethroughny.net

> To see what her pension is, check www.seethroughny.net

wow, since when is it public info at the individual level!? feels weird to me

Public-employee salaries have always been public, but a lot easier to get in recent years.

"Christie isn't cutting fast enough..."

Christie has not cut spending, instead choosing to give $400 million in subsidies to an indoor ski slope and $261 million to a casino.