[quote] State Supreme Court orders appeals court review of San Diego pension overhaul
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer did his best to put a positive spin on a California Supreme Court ruling that may force the city to pay millions of dollars to workers who lost benefits under the city’s 2012 pension reform effort.
“San Diego pension reform remains the law of the land and today’s Supreme Court decision keeps Proposition B in full force and effect,” Faulconer said in a statement. “While the court’s deference to an earlier ruling means the debate over this issue is not over, it does not change the fact that voters amended the City Charter to bring fairness to city pensions.”
Some 66% of San Diego voters approved the pension reform initiative in 2012, according to the mayor’s office.
The state’s highest court ruled on Thursday that the placement of San Diego’s pension cutbacks on the ballot was invalid because city officials failed to negotiate with labor unions before pursuing the measure.
[quote] San Diego’s pension mess just got a lot messier. Now what?
…the court sent the case back to an appellate court for “judicial remedy,” raising huge questions about whether the reforms — approved by two out of three San Diego voters in 2012 and unique in the state — would survive and how much — $20 million? $100 million? — the city might have to cough up to remedy the violation. No one knows.
basically taxpayers lose again,…. all because the public pension portfolio as structured and operated is DISHONEST and DUMB
nothing will be done (until its vary obvious the system is about to crash or has crashed, 2020 timeframe???), because in the meantime politicians who voice support for the existing pension setup get to keep their office along w/ tacit union support AND retired public employee union members get to keep various benefits like the 13th pension payment (the nonsensical justification being EXCESS EARNING),… so seems its inevitable things are destined to end badly
the only loser w/ the status quo is the taxpayers who have to endure fewer services AND are expected to pick up an ever increasing tab due to the “California Rule” (basically an understanding that taxpayers are suppose to make up any shortfalls)
a news report about the SD county, shows,…
[quote]
Transparent California, a research group that is critical of excessive government pensions and salaries, says in a new study that benefits promised by the San Diego County Employees’ Retirement Association (SDCERA) jumped 1,237 percent from 1986 to 2016 — a rise that was four times more than the 372 percent increase of personal income in the county.
the chart tells me this trend is unsustainable AND given another “sign”
[quote] Joe Nation (Stanford University “conference”) on California’s pension system
starting @ 2 min 56 sec
“let’s get a sense of how things [PUBLIC PENSIONS] are at the local level,… the share of payroll that those entities will need to pay in order to cover pension and OPEB unfunded liabilities as you see the worst one is the city of SAN DIEGO”
the future does not look too bright,… as I see things, unfunded public pension debt is akin to stress slowly building up between tectonic plates,… so when there is too much stress on a fault line that has built up over time, in other words when the forces are too great to hold things together, the result is a “sudden” and “violent” earth quake event (2020 timeframe???)
BTW public pensions have no other back stop other than taxpayers, and existing troubled pension systems are using up existing pension insurance at a pretty alarming burn rate
to give you some idea of the magnitude of just the “public pension” problem, consider a group out of stanford puts the “market basis” of the pension debt in the TRILLION$
(note the “market basis” implies using the “risk free rate” or the rate of return of a hypothetical investment with no risk of financial loss, over a given period of time)
BOTTOM LINE the amount of public pensions promised is much greater than the ability of system to deliver,…
When TSHTF (2020???) what is going to prevent economic recovery is the “California Rule” because its implied tax payers are on the hook for the self inflected $hit that happened (caused by politicians AND public employee unions),…
PS
[quote] …states that also use a contract rights approach to public pension benefits have chosen to follow the principles of the California Rule. Those states are:
PPS the final nail that is going to kill off the economy is derivatives (basically this is going to freeze money in big banks since these instruments have senior status over ordinary bank deposits)
