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Aguirre Says State Regulation of Municipal Pension Plans Almost Non-Existent; Calls for Federal Regulation
I am glad Mike is challenging Sanders on the POB's. They are not the answer. I was just researching POB’s myself and came across this bombshell from 2 years ago. Good article. Although I have come across conflicting legal authority, this is the basic argument why I think POB’s are illegal-at least without voter approval. COURT INVALIDATES CALIFORNIA PENSION BONDS Government Borrowing Scheme Violates State Constitution Sacramento, CA (11/17/05) -- The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) announced today that a Sacramento judge has struck down more than half-a-billion dollars in pension bonds that California lawmakers included in the 2005 state budget. The court ruled in response to a legal challenge brought by PLF on behalf of the Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers (FACT). At issue were "pension obligation bonds" intended to help cover the state's contribution to the public-employee pension system for 2005. When the bond plan was first unveiled late last year, it was for nearly $1 billion. After PLF and FACT filed their legal challenge, the state reduced the proposed bond amount to about $550 million. PLF argued that the pension bonds violate Article XVI, Section 1, of the California Constitution, which forbids state borrowing in excess of $300,000 without a vote of the people. Judge Raymond M. Cadei of the Sacramento County Superior Court agreed, ruling: "The statutes authorizing the present bonds, and the present bonds themselves, are therefore invalid under Article 16, Section 1." http://www.fullertontaxpayers.org/pensionbondsrel…— February 24, 2008 12:22 p.m.
Aguirre Says State Regulation of Municipal Pension Plans Almost Non-Existent; Calls for Federal Regulation
Don, you should check with Mike about POB’s, and see if they have ever been legally challenged in court. Think about this for a second- if you were to finance payroll costs with bonds instead of pensions, that would almost certainly be illegal. I have never heard of Payroll Obligation Bonds, but there is in fact no real difference. A payroll bond and a pension bond would be the exact same from a financing point of view. It is long term debt, “financing” today’s operating expenses. Pensions are, IMO, just a form of payroll costs, just like healthcare and other benefits. So, if you could not finance today’s payroll costs with bonds, then why would it be allowed for today’s pension costs? And that is what POB’s do; they pay TODAY’S pension costs with TOMORROWS income (with a lot of interest added on). You correctly pointed out that bonds have historically been used to build high cost infrastructure. Infrastructure which would last for decades. No so with POB's, in fact the difference is so far apart it boggles the mind that POB's even exist. OK Don, this is your task for your next blog article-research POB’s, see if they are in fact legal and then point out their enormous costs!!!!— February 24, 2008 10:53 a.m.
San Diegans for City Hall Reform pushes more authority for mayor
#54. SDCERS recently voted to pass that $146 million on to taxpayers, not ask the employees to pay what they should have paid in the first place. _____________ Bingo! Liability all passed onto taxpayers, while all benefits go to the City employee. Pensions work the same way. Taxpayers take 100% of the risk, employees reap 100% of the benefits. JF, the fact is 8% is higher than any private sector plan, and also higher than the vast MAJORITY of public sector plans. Then when there is a windfall over the 8% it is passed onto the employee in the form of a 13th check and whatever else(instead of being banked for future losses/shortfalls). And if there is shortfall the taxpayer makes up 100% of the shortfall. That is a scam anyway you slice it.— February 23, 2008 8:40 p.m.
Aguirre Says State Regulation of Municipal Pension Plans Almost Non-Existent; Calls for Federal Regulation
Don, Mike is 100% right about oversight of public pensions. But I think much of the problems we have seen are going to be over now that the public entities MUST expense out all future costs-including healthcare and pensions. This was always done in the private sector but just recently (last 2 years ago) required in the public sector, and not a second too soon. The State of California and all subdivisions have not previously expensed out these costs, and now they realize that they are in a world of trouble. So I think the fact that these expenses are now being carried on the books will cure many of the problems we had in the past-which were a lack of transparency and ultimately accountability for pushing today’s debts off on tomorrows children and grand children. I also do not think for a second that the Congress will set up a system to monitor state public employee pension funds. It also may not be allowed under the 11th Amendment, which bars states from being sued in federal courts under the “sovereign immunity doctrine”-but who knows. It would be a big help, but it may not be needed now that we have transparency in these expenses. I would be more interested in seeing if there have been any legal challenges to the use of Pension Obligation Bonds (“POB”), which allow today’s debts to be pushed onto future generations. I cannot for the life of me figure out how these are legal. I think it may be possible that no one has ever made a legal challenge to POB’s, but I am have no expertise in municipal law, so again, who knows what the legal answer is. If you know if POBs have been legally challeneged, please let us all know the answer.— February 23, 2008 8:27 p.m.
San Diegans for City Hall Reform pushes more authority for mayor
Don't try to explain DROP or SS to JF. He has his head so deep in the sand he only sees what he wants to see. JF, as to your absurd position that 50 is not too young to reitre, or 40 either, as long as it is funded properly-that is a load of baloney. You simply cannot "fund" multi million dollar pensions for HS educated, blue collar, on the job trained positions such as PD and FD. That is an absurdity. You need to go take accounting 101, and then take math 101, and then you will see 2+2= 4, not 1 million!— February 23, 2008 12:45 p.m.
San Diegans for City Hall Reform pushes more authority for mayor
#38. Response to post #37: Under the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP), a City worker reaching normal retirement age 50 (safety employees) or 55 (others), agrees to stay another 5 years. ___________________________ The fact of the matter is this, DROP is a scam and the ONLY reason it even appears to work is because of the ARTIFICIALLY LOW retirement ages of 50/55/60. FULL retirement age in social security (JF, understand what the word FULL means) used to be 65, today it is age 66, and in a few years it is getting bumped (AGAIN) to age 67. It is very possible that in 10 years full retirement for social security could be 70 or more. So if the City welfare queens were to use the DROP option when the 99% of the rest of America retires they would be working DROP from ages 66 to 71, and you KNOW that they would never do that-hense the artificially low retirement age of 50 so the DROP scam works. The artificial retirement age of 50 is a scam, DROP compounds that scam, and so do the other benefit/pension absues in Government, including buying service year credits at 5-20 cents on the dollar (there is a reason people must VEST to get benefits), and also the supplemental pension 401K with matching funds of up to 6% ...... JF, Vallejo is going BK, and it is NOT because of OT. Their problem has been festering for 10+ years, if you read the article. San Diego's problems are a little older-12 years, so we are very similar to Vallejo. San Diego is in a CASH FLOW bankruptcy, income does not meet expenses. And we will be in Vallejo's position soon, if we are not already. Pension Obligation Bonds mask many of the problems with the County and other municipalities, and Sanders wants to float those next...... Oh brother.... (Johnny rolls eye).— February 22, 2008 8:09 p.m.
San Diegans for City Hall Reform pushes more authority for mayor
#22. Putting SD employees into Social Security won't cure the city's problems. It will make them worse, as OT will go waaaay up since the city won't be able to find employees. Or service will suffer. By JF 2:22 p.m., Feb 21, 2008 > Report it _______ Both positions are false. Putting EVERYONE into SS would virtually cure all the pension funding problems overnight, the funding would be mandated at the same time as paying the employee, leaving NO room for underfunding to be made up at a later date. Second, there are literally 1000 applicants for every single open FF position. Even if it dropped by a a factor of 99+%, we would still have 10 applicants for every FF position- still a factor of 10. If McDonalds can run smoothly and competently with minimum wage HS workers, then I think we could get plenty of quality workers with a pay scale of $50K/$60K up to $250K per year with O/T (don't make me post "Harry's list" JF...LOL) with only a HS diploma. BTW JF, did you see my link to the City of Vallejo???? If not I'll re-post it. Going BK next month over PD and FD pensions/pay.— February 21, 2008 4:08 p.m.
San Diego's Police State: Blogger Flannery Booted Out of Dumanis Press Conference
Don, It was the DA's press conference-correct? I know Kolander was there in the background, but it is my understanding this was a DA press conference to promote the Republican judge for City Attorney. So if it indeed was the DA's press conference, then only she would have the authority to throw someone out. Right? She was the one running the show, so there could be no other person that could give the authority to toss a citizen out but her..... IMO. Her actions -especially for an elected PUBLIC official- were/are dispicable.— February 21, 2008 3:59 p.m.
San Diegans for City Hall Reform pushes more authority for mayor
#17. A pay increase for police and fire would be just fine as long as it would be handled correctly. I would support a substantial pay raise now and into the future it they would also agree to reduce the pension multiplier from 3 back to 2 and to increase the minimum retirement age. By sdblogger 10:35 a.m., Feb 21, 2008 > Report it ______ I agree with EVERYTHING in this posters post-but especially with what I copied above. I could deal with this, and so would most SD residents I think-but it will never happen in a million years on a voluntary basis by the PD or FD-they are so far up on Easy Street that they would never agree to a compromise of this nature. I 100% agree that the best soultion, and most fair to the residents, would be to put ALL new hires into Social Security.— February 21, 2008 12:42 p.m.
San Diego's Police State: Blogger Flannery Booted Out of Dumanis Press Conference
Great, now we have Fireman Sparky telling lawyers the law. Sparky-you’re a little out of your league here but I am going to give you the straight scoop. First off, this was a PUBLIC PRESS CONFERNCE by a PUBLIC OFFICIAL. I did not know where it happened at, and naturally thought it was at the DA’s office, a PUBIC PLACE. But no worry, the Westgate is a limited public place for the purposes of a public press conference. As for it being at the Westgate Hotel, that does not indemnify Dumbass from liability, she was giving a PUBLIC PRESS CONFERENCE, during WORKING HOURS, for a PUBLIC OFFICE. As such it really does not really matter where Dumbass gave her propaganda pep talk, it was a PUBLIC ISSUE being discussed by a PUBLIC OFFICIAL-so the notion that she can shield herself by conducting a public press conference in a limited public place makes no difference. Clear violation of First Amendment rights. Second, Flannery was PHYSICALL DETAINED and “seized”. Clear violation of Fourth Amendment rights. But hey, I bet you already knew all these things, being a fire fighter and all. Tell you what Johnny Cochran Junior, aka “Sparky”, next time Dumbass holds one of these goofball press conferences at the Westgate, you let me know beforehand, and I will be SURE to show up with a camcorder and I DARE you, no, I DOUBLE DARE you to try that nonsense with me. Just make sure your legal liability insurance is paid up, along with your health insurance, because you will to be spending the next 4 years in federal court. That’s a promise Sparky.— February 21, 2008 12:35 p.m.