The study found that benefits paid to retired workers also vary. Tuesday”s report was co-authored by California Common Sense, a student-oriented nonprofit organization at Stanford that focuses on government transparency. The board is pressing for lower pension formulas for new workers, and retirement and health care contributions from older employees who don”t currently pay.Ī tentative agreement has been reached with public safety unions, but the county remains at an impasse with other labor groups. Kern County”s Board of Supervisors has been trying to negotiate concessions from public employee unions since June 2010. “The board has all these very strict governance and funding policies to assure that the funding is enough to meet their liabilities,” Holdren said. She said the association projects it has a 60 percent funded ratio, which has prompted the pension board to schedule a review of its funding levels. “Each system substantially understates liabilities and overstates funded ratios,” the report stated.Īnne Holdren, executive director of the Kern County Employees” Retirement Association, said the county”s pension system uses different assumptions than Stanford”s group. The two retirement systems operated by the city of Fresno came close, with a funded ratio of 78.5 percent, while the pension system in neighboring Kern County was only 41.5 percent funded. The study assumed a 5 percent annual rate of return for the funds” investments, much more conservative than the 7.75 percent or greater annual return rate assumed by many of the funds. The report found that none of the systems is at least 80 percent funded, which often is used as a benchmark for the minimum funding level of pension funds. The funds ranged from those for smaller entities, such as Santa Barbara and Stanislaus County, to the largest local governments in California, including Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and a nonprofit group, California Common Sense, evaluated 24 local government pension systems that are not part of the California Public Employees” Retirement System, the state”s main pension fund. SACRAMENTO - Two dozen city and county governments in California face a combined $135.7 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, according to a study released Tuesday that also found the problem is growing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |