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San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Don, In response to #912. You said, "that's part of what he "claimed". (emphasis added) Believe me when I say I don't defend their actions but, as clearly documented in Mr. Aguirre's Interim Report #1 at this link: http://www.sandiego.gov/cityattorney/reports/pdf/… on page 8: "Under the agreement, known as Managers Proposal 1 (“MP 1"), the City agreed to make a balloon payment if the ratio of fund assets to liabilities fell below a “trigger” of 82.3%" Mr. McGrory did set a floor in MP1 on the pension funding ratio to trigger a balloon payment. It was the Mayor and council who ignored it for their personal and political gain. In other words, once again, the bill was due, and the City, more specifically, it's elected leaders, decided they're did not want to pay for the party.— February 20, 2009 7:53 a.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
BTW if Jack did respond, here is his answer. "I set a reasonable floor (I believe it was 82% funded) funding a ratio. The council voted to ignore it, check their voting record." And Susan... "I was following Jack's lead. I'm not responsible."— February 19, 2009 3:08 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Two words completely describe Johnny's responses: TROLL NONSENSE. Regarding his suggestion to Don about interviewing Jack and Susan. While their stories would be interesting reading (if truth could be culled from fiction), the chances of it ever happening are as remote as getting a rational response from Mr. Vegas on any blog.— February 19, 2009 1:16 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Johnny, your statement to me in 885 above was... OMG!!! Are you SERIOUS???????? It has ALWAYS been the unions job to protect it's pension fund. It is called a "fiduciary duty"," Don's response: The unions have enormous power, but I wouldn't call them fiduciaries. You can't be a fiduciary if you don't have control over the assets. It's just that simple.— February 19, 2009 11:35 a.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Now back to the original point of this thread.... David Wescoe, the SDCERS administrator has posted his point of view for the up coming decision regarding the DROP interest crediting rate. Here is the link: http://www.sdcers.org/boardagendas/tab1_0209.pdf What I found most interesting is last paragraph on page 1. In particular sentence #2 to end of the paragraph, where the rate of return for a 20+ year annuity may NOT be greater than the rate paid to a 5-year DROP account that is accumulating funds. On page two Wescoe goes on and discusses how the rate of return should be decided by index or indices. This relieves the board of the responsibility of setting an arbitrary or inflated rate of return. This also fulfills one of their fiduciary duties by protecting the system. Also of note in the PDF file was the Mayor's plea and argument for reasonableness when considering the crediting rate. While I agree its important to be reasonable and apply common sense. But the Mayor's position that the Boards decisions must not only take into account the welfare of Plan, participants but also the Plan Sponsor. To use Johnny's expression, OMG you've got to be kidding. IT WAS JUST THIS KIND OF THINKING THAT GOT US INTO THIS MESS. HAS NOTHING CHANGED? The SDCERS Board has no authority WHATSOEVER to curtail the City's spending binges as evidenced by 1996 RNC as well as other projects. If the Mayor is implying SDCERS should lower the rate of return ONLY to relieve the City from past obligation, he and his staff have learned nothing from past, dooming the citizens of San Diego to repeat this mess in the future when he will not be Mayor.— February 19, 2009 11:22 a.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Don thanks for the clear and concise response in #895.— February 19, 2009 10:47 a.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Ooops, Johnny is back pedaling in comment 891 above... What he really meant to say is the City, its elected leaders and Management officers, borrowed the money from the pension plan (in the form of underpayments) for its pet projects and now doesn't want meet their obligations and pay back the money. This sounds very similar to housing crisis. Maybe if you ask President Obama, he'll offer a bailout to us too.— February 19, 2009 8:05 a.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Don see comments 876 and 877 to answer JF's question about jive and jibe. Don you said, 'A fiduciary is charged with investing funds of a beneficiary wisely." If you would, please comment on Mr. Vegas's statement in #885 above. More specifically, how the Unions control the investing schemes of SDCERS funds to meet your definition of a fiduciary. Every document I've read indicates SDCERS has a professional investment manager who reports to the board. The manager uses outside "Investment Professional's" advice to guide them in their investment decisions. It seems to me, this meets or exceeds the standards and practices of the industry. So do you believe the Unions are fiduciaries of SDCERS? Or is Mr. Vegas just trolling again?— February 19, 2009 7:58 a.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
So John, if we subscribe to your theory that the Union control the pension fund, which is utterly insane, and they have a duty to protect it, then what duty did our city leaders have? Remember, it was your elected leaders, the management staff they hired and retained along with your elected City Attorney who proposed the underfunding in the first place. Do they hold any responsibility? I'll give you a simple, very to easy to understand example, since you're not able to grasp simple concepts. In the January SDCERS board meeting a question was asked about the MOUs between labor groups and the city. One MOU specifically spelled out the interest credit rate for DROP accounts. SDCERS Fiduciary Counsel explicitly told the Board they WERE NOT bound by any MOU agreement between the City and its labor group. She went on to tell the Board they had two fiduciary duties. One to safe guard the systems assets and two maximize member benefits. So tell me John, How do the “unions” hold a fiduciary position when they are not in a position to control? Especially when board members, associated union groups recues themselves from certain votes and are not allowed by the System’s general counsel to be in the room for any discussion! The answer, of course, as Mr. Bauder pointed out, posts from certain bloggers “are inflammatory or inaccurate information just go get others excited.” In other words they are trolls.— February 18, 2009 8:26 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
I'm not sure I agree with the statement, "If the unions had done their job of protecting their pension fund instead of allowing greed to enter into the action there would be no problem today. When did it become the Union's job to protect the pension fund? While it's true, Mr. Sathoff, a union rep and CERS board member voted in favor of the underfunding, you forgot to mention that Mr. Rhoades, a POA Association Board member and CERS board member voted against it. But unions only had a few of the votes on the SDCERS board and could not control the outcome. I suggest it the City Manager's and Mayor's offices that were the swaying factor, not the unions. Sadly while some have been indicted, the real architects behind it, the ones you mentioned in your response were never charged.— February 18, 2009 5:31 p.m.