It is surprisingly difficult to gather data on just how many public safety employees claim disability in their retirements, but this should not prevent us from estimating what the benefits bestowed on disability claimants cost taxpayers. A common program to compensate public safety workers for job-related disabilities is to grant them a tax exemption, whereby...
When the taxpayer is backing up the entire liability for the pensions received by members of the California Public Employees Retirement System, then CalPERS officials are exuberant about the stock market. They insist that a predicted rate of return of 7.75 percent is perfectly realistic. When their own funds are on the line, however, CalPERS...
In a prelude for what will eventually happen in every state, a Battle brews over Texas public pensions. Texas could be gearing up for its own Wisconsin-style grudge match over public employee benefits. A group of high-powered Houston business leaders is starting a statewide campaign to overhaul retirement for future teachers, firefighters, police officers, judges...
Whenever CalPERS, or any government worker pension fund, suggests that a long-term projected rate of return of 7.75% is realistic and prudent, one needs to consider the following: Across every major stock index in the U.S., and on most indexes in the rest of the world, publicly traded stocks have been down for the last...
In a scene that is going to play out in scores of cities across the nation, unions are going to come to grips with the fact that pensions are not sacrosanct. Please consider Rhode Island city asks retirees to cut their pensions As cities across the United States struggle to keep their finances afloat, Central...
The San Diego Union Tribune ran a report on June 17th entitled “Escondido firefighters do contribute to pensions.” Apparently this report was to correct an error from a previous article in which the Tribune stated that Escondido’s firefighters did not make any contribution to their pension. In reality the firefighters contribute to their pension fund...
Jailing is big business. California spends approximately $9 billion a year on its correctional system, and hosts one in seven of the nation’s prisoners. It has the largest prison population of any state. The number of correctional facilities, the amount of compensation for their unionized staffs, and the total cost of incarcerating a prisoner in...
Today’s Sacramento Bee featured a viewpoint column entitled “Pension ‘Reformers’ distort facts on benefits.” The column was written by Martha Penry, “a special education teacher’s assistant in the Twin Rivers school district.” Not disclosed in the article was the fact that Ms. Penry is also a high ranking public employee union official, as evidenced by...
Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “Private Accounts Can Save Social Security,” authored by Martin Feldstein, former chairman of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors and a member of the Wall Street Journal’s board of contributors. In this article, Feldstein made the following assertion: “With a 3% payroll deduction, someone...
Yet another report released this week confirms the enormous liabilities that California taxpayers must endure to pay for pensions for public employees. The study, released at a Pension Boot Camp for elected officials held in Citrus Heights by the reform group Californians for Fiscal Responsibility, echoed the points made by the Little Hoover Commission, Stanford...
Union arguments in favor of their members’ lush pensions are falling by the wayside as the public examines the facts. For instance, union officials argue that the average public-sector pension benefit in California is “only” $30,000 a year, while neglecting to mention that the number, according to the state’s watchdog Little Hoover Commission, rises to...
According to the CalPERS website, in their California Investments section, “as of January 31, 2011, approximately 10.3 percent of CalPERS total assets are invested in California.” This means that out of the $233.5 billion in assets under management by CalPERS (ref. Current Investment Fund Values), $24 billion is invested in California. Apparently CalPERS would have us...
There’s no getting away from the pension issue these days or from the fact that the state’s pension system is on the brink of disaster unless pensions for state and local workers are pared back dramatically. The only people in denial these days are the Brown administration and the state’s legislative leaders, as their response...
Earlier this week the Sacramento Bee hosted a chat on the topic “Should States Rethink Collective Bargaining.” In addition to journalists from the Bee, participants included Steve Greenhut, editor of CalWatchdog.org, and Art Pulaski, the chief officer of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. During the hour-long discussion, the topic of public sector pensions came up...