Pension Crisis Editorial

[FD828 77]

This is a letter to the editor well written by a police officer in New Jersey. Long but really worth reading.

http://uslawman.websitetoolbox.com/printthread?id=4974192

Edited November 18, 2010 by helicopper
Text replaced with link due to copyright issues.

[JAD622 40]

This is a letter to the editor well written by a police officer in New Jersey. Long but really worth reading.

http://uslawman.websitetoolbox.com/printthread?id=4974192

Excellent letter and I'm sure the circumstances here in NY are very similar. Does anyone have information regarding our pension woes since we are being attacked everyday in the media too? I have heard numerous similar accounts regarding why our municipalities contributions have increased. They want the public to believe it is all our fault and we are to blame for high taxes. Hopefully someone out there has the straight story so we can get it out there!

[Alpinerunner 61]

This is a letter to the editor well written by a police officer in New Jersey. Long but really worth reading.

http://uslawman.websitetoolbox.com/printthread?id=4974192

Excellent and enlightening. I imagine this is going on in more states than just NJ

[efdcapt115 1,511]

Excellent letter and I'm sure the circumstances here in NY are very similar. Does anyone have information regarding our pension woes since we are being attacked everyday in the media too? I have heard numerous similar accounts regarding why our municipalities contributions have increased. They want the public to believe it is all our fault and we are to blame for high taxes. Hopefully someone out there has the straight story so we can get it out there!

NYPFRA had an article in it's latest Newsletter addressing this very topic:

July 10, 2010 ALBANY -- Municipalities are offering mixed reviews of a plan by the state Legislature and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli to allow the state and local governments to essentially borrow from the state pension fund to lower huge spikes in retirement costs.

The measure, which has already passed the Assembly and awaits a vote in the Senate, would let state and local governments delay a portion of their pension costs into future years at an annual interest rate of about 5 percent, officials said.

Some local governments are praising the proposal as a way to help them better manage pension costs, which for local governments are expected to soar by 61 percent next year. But others view it as another borrowing scheme by the state to avoid spending cuts and limits on public-employee benefits.

Pension costs are rising rapidly in New York as the result of payouts to retirees and the continuing economic problems in the state and country.

http://www.nypfra.org/index.cfm

As far as the overall health of the New York State Retirement System:

New York

Pension Liability: $141 billion

Percent funded: 107.38%

Employees in Pension Plans: 1,343,524

New York is the nationwide pension leader, with the country's highest-funded public pension at 107%

Though the state has long been in financial turmoil, it has met its necessary funding level every year since at least 1997. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli made it his goal to increase the plan's transparency and ensure it maintains a high level of funding. To make good on this, in 2009, New York passed reforms that raised the retirement age for most new gov't employees from 55 to 62, and increased the amount public employees are required to contribute to the pension plan.

But you can bet, if this latest "deferred payment plan" for the municipalities goes through, NY will lose it's spot as the best funded pension plan. Municipalities will take advantage of the deferred payment at a proposed 5% interest rate for repayment, and NY will start the slide toward being underfunded; the same crisis our Brothers and Sisters in New Jersey are facing now.

[jack10562 414]

WOW Great letter by this NJ Cop. That huge wad of pension cash is utterly irresistible to these politicians. It looks like NY has one foot on the banana peel and the other on the slope...if they pass that pension funding deferment measure they will certainly follow in NJ's footsteps.

It's not just the states- The feds have been quietly raiding social security for years.

[efdcapt115 1,511]

WOW Great letter by this NJ Cop. That huge wad of pension cash is utterly irresistible to these politicians. It looks like NY has one foot on the banana peel and the other on the slope...if they pass that pension funding deferment measure they will certainly follow in NJ's footsteps.

It's not just the states- The feds have been quietly raiding social security for years.

Totally agree with you Jack. The ironic part is how the talk of the new Republican majority renewing it's attack and attempts to privatize social security. Let's take a snapshot look at the New York Retirement System. It's a "public-private partnership", where the private industry feeds off of lucrative funds and fees in the System. All the people in the private sector that go about railing against our pension plan should be careful; if they work in the finance industry, one of the largest industries in New York, they might be biting the hand that feeds them;

132.5 billion dollar value of the pension system as of March 2010:

These are some of the allocations from the System that the private finance industry controls, and the fees they collect as a result:

$51.5 billion invested in Domestic Equities

$21.2 billion invested in International Equities

$13 billion invested in Private Equities

$6.3 billion invested in Real Estate Loans

$34.6 million in Domestic Equities management fees

$17.9 million in Domestic Equities commissions

$70.1 million in International Equities management fees

$11.3 million in International Equities commissions

$76.9 million in Real Estate Management fees

$115.8 million in Private Equities management fees

$48.7 million in Absolute Return Strategy management fees

The pension system money is invested out there in the private sector; building businesses,EDIT: Oh yeah, creating jobs in the private sector, developing technologies, both here in the U.S. and overseas. Public money is intertwined in the private sector; the same way a cop or firefighter makes a salary off taxes, pays income tax, pays property tax, etc.

Cops and firefighters have become just a convenient target for those opportunistic politicians who play people through the media, who sell the news, etc. We're the whipping boy; part jealousy, envy (who would have ever thought people in the private sector would be envious of what civil servants get?) I think it says more about how far the mighty have fallen, as opposed to how far the civil servant has come.

Edited November 18, 2010 by efdcapt115

[spin_the_wheel 460]

If the facts are correct in this letter, and by all reports it seems it is, then every PBA and Fire Union in NJ should get together spend the money and take a full page ad out in every major paper in the state and reprint this letter.

[Bnechis 3,961]

If the facts are correct in this letter, and by all reports it seems it is, then every PBA and Fire Union in NJ should get together spend the money and take a full page ad out in every major paper in the state and reprint this letter.

While it is important to inform the community, does anyone even read the papers and if they do, do they pay any attention to ads (particularly from the unions)?

[spin_the_wheel 460]

While it is important to inform the community, does anyone even read the papers and if they do, do they pay any attention to ads (particularly from the unions)?

This may be true in this day and age with all the other sources out there to get your news from, but such a large "action" like this would generate news just by the act of it appearing in almost all the states papers.. I'm sure if done right TV news casts in some places would pick up this story, as well as it being a story on the net, like on yahoo etc...

Hey all the negative stuff about PD and FD gets press, and it seems is read by everyone, it's worth a shot.

[bad box 371]

Notice that former N.J. Governor Christie Todd Whitman shows up playing a major role in this scandal. She's the very same person who in her position as the head of the Federal E.P.A. continually informed us that, "The air is safe around Ground Zero" in the days and weeks following the September 11th terrorist attacks. What a lowly P.O.S. she is ...

Edited November 19, 2010 by bad box