Comments by JF | San Diego Reader

JF

City Pension Portfolio Plunges Below $4 Billion; That's Lower Than Level of Mid-2006

Don, so if I've got this right, you're saying that SDCERS outperformed the market over the time frame from June 30, 2006 until now. I don't think it's any big secret that the system was going to lose value in this market. But... only a small portion of those funds are needed now. The rest may be invested for the long run, in which the market will likely gain back much of what it has lost. Looking at the big picture, SDCERS lost much less than the market as a whole.
— October 23, 2008 9:14 p.m.

Good News: SDCERS Discussing Lowering Interest Rate on DROP Account

Johnny wrote, "I will find something for the older guys to do if they claim they are not capable of physically fighting fires after age 50-which is another whopper in and of itself." Here's the fault in Johnny's logic. The city doesn't have extra budgeted positions just laying around waiting for the infirm to occupy. Can you imagine the budget outcry if we increased the size of the FD by, say, 300 just to provide jobs to people waiting for a retirement age of 62? Isn't it more fiscally prudent to begin planning an earlier retirement 25 years earlier, when the employee joins the FD? You have no idea just how lean the FD is. The mayor hired a consultant to see where the FD could cut fat. This individual was from the Austin FD. Austin is a much smaller city than San Diego, yet they have more support staff in their FD than SD does. Wonder why his report never hit the press? Oh, by the way, that report? No bid... and from a guy who's worked for DeMaio.
— October 23, 2008 8:50 p.m.

Good News: SDCERS Discussing Lowering Interest Rate on DROP Account

Gee sorry, Don, I do have a life beyond posting on your blog. Let's see, about the 79% funding number. That (at the time) was an accurate number. Joe the Actuary didn't say that number was unacceptable, he said that using that method of calculating the percentage funded was inaccurate. There's one little problem with the study Johnny quoted. It's from German firefighters -- 50 years ago. What's changed in 50 years? Well, there's a much greater use of synthetics in household materials these days. NIOSH has documented that fires today are hotter and the smoke has more carcinogens. Look to the University of Cincinnati study on cancer rates on firefighters. http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-news/Firefigh… About health care funding. The city pays into SDCERS for retiree healthcare insurance. However, if a retiree proves that a post-retirement claim is workers comp related, the money comes from the city's (self funded) workers comp budget. This only comes up in the case of presumptive illnesses with a time lag. Obviously, I'm not an attorney, so I can't comment on the specifics. Just as obviously, JV has never heard of it even though he does claim to be an attorney. To summarize... firefighters may live the same length of time as other folks, but I don't see how that's possible with us having twice the likelihood of getting cancer. It's much cheaper for the city to pawn payment for a cancer case off to a post-retirement insurance provider versus paying the claim themselves. The sooner the employee retires, the sooner the city is off the hook for workers' comp.
— October 23, 2008 8:07 p.m.

Good News: SDCERS Discussing Lowering Interest Rate on DROP Account

OK, in response to Johnny's assertion that people in Social Security retire at age 75, take a look at this study: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2001/10/art2full.pdf Now look at Table 1, entitled, "Estimated average age at retirement of men and women". Table 1 is split by Social Security data vs entire labor force data. Then it's split by men vs women and by year of retirement. The average age of Social Security retirement in 2000 was 62.6 for men and 62.5 for women. That's only 12.5 years before Johnny said they retire. Incidentally, those ages are 62.0 and 61.4 for the entire labor force. In other words, Johnny's cork must be pretty strained just about now. He occasionally writes stuff that makes sense, but his gross exaggerations blow the whole thing.
— October 22, 2008 8:07 p.m.