Auditor warns El Dorado supes about pension liability
By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee
El Dorado County’s auditor-controller has issued a warning to the Board of Supervisors about unfunded pension liability.
According to Joe Harn’s letter to the supervisors last week, the liability has more than doubled from June 2008 to June 2009, the most recent reported.
The current liability is $264 million, he said.
Holy crap.
How many people over how many years?
What is the average % of salary after say 25 years at age 60?
Are we offering too high a pension versus what the private sector pays?
How did the liability double in 1 year?
County Supervisors are negligent for not having addressed this serious and growing problem sooner. To have allowed the county’s unfunded pension liability to double during a time when everyone else was reducing costs and cutting back, in the middle of a recession, is wholly irresponsible.
Joe, El Dorado County,
Are there any other unfunded retirement related costs we should know about?
Health benefits ?
If we think the Counties liabilities are bads, then you should look into the Cities! Word is they are only paying interest on their retirement plan. Maybe O’Rourke can clarify?
Value of pension funds went down because investments tanked from 2008 to 2009. They should recovery as the market recovers, but are still massively underfunded.
Joe Harn is a good guy and really watches out for us beatup taxpayers.
The real problem is the bribe paying unions and their control over the spineless money hungry politicians. The problem exists everywhere in the USA. It is time for the states, counties, and cities to declare bankruptcy and renegociate contracts with the unions to bring paylevels and pension benefits in line with private industry and what taxpayers can afford.
For instance, why can government workers retire with full benefits at 50 for public saftey and 55 for other than public saftey when us private sectors types have to wait to 66 for full benefits of social security, which are only about 1/4 to 1/2 of public employee’s benefits. Government aristocracies run roughshod over us plebians.