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unfunded pension liabilities should force pension reform in Ventura

Latest Facts About Unfunded Pension Liabilities You Need to Know

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Norman Vincent Peale on confronting Ventura's unfunded pension liabilities

“Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You’ll find they haven’t half the strength you think they have.”

—Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

Which leader will arise to address unfunded pension liabilities?

Ventura’s unfunded pension liabilities continued to grow in 2019 to $218.6 million. The City of Ventura continues to sink deeper into debt to pay for city employees’ present and future retirement benefits.

Unfortunately, the economic reality of the city’s current public pension liabilities is not receiving the attention it demands. We raised the warning flag about the growing unfunded pension liabilities debt in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019, yet the problem continues to grow unabated.

Revised Unfunded Pension Liabilities Figures

The new unfunded pension liabilities figures come from the 2018-2019 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). Ventura added $3.5 million to its unfunded liabilities. Simultaneously, the market value of Ventura’s assets held by CalPERS dropped to 66.7%, a multi-year low.

A chart of how bad Ventura's Unfunded Pension Liabilities have become

 

A Political Hot Topic

Discussions about pensions get emotional because we’re talking about people’s future and security. Let’s be clear. We respect the work city employees do. There is no denying that fire and police perform a vital job that is both dangerous and requires a high level of training and responsibility.

Our concern is not about their work. We’re uneasy about how the city structures, accumulates and pays retirement benefits.

Neglecting Pension Liabilities Doesn’t Make Them Disappear

Unfunded Pension Liabilities don't calculate well for VenturaFor ten years, Ventura has done little to remedy its unfunded pension liabilities. During that time, there have been four different City Councils. Yet, they made only a modest effort to solve the problem. Then-Mayor Bill Fulton and City Manager Rick Cole claimed in 2011 that the City of Ventura had tilled new ground by requiring the city employees to pay something toward their retirement – 4 ½%.

Yet, closer scrutiny showed employees pay their 4 ½% retirement contribution toward the employers’ portion (i.e., The taxpayers’ portion) of what Ventura sends to the CALPERS retirement plan. This accounting maneuver explicitly increases the employee’s total compensation, meaning the “contribution” counts as the employee’s income to calculate the employee’s retirement benefit when they retire.

What Ventura Can Do About Its Unfunded Pension Liabilities

The City Council made this one attempt to improve the current system but did not address the problem in a meaningful way. Since there are no proposals from the Council, the League of California Cities and Government Finance Officers Association recommended these actions to confront unsustainable pensions.

  1. Reduce the unfunded liability by making annual catch-up payments even more than CalPERS instructs you to pay—if you can afford to pay more.
  2. Raise taxes
  3. Reduce services
  4. Require voter approval of any pension obligation bond or POB. (Click to learn more about POBs)

These are terrible choices for the public.

Suggestions For Addressing Unfunded Pension Liabilities

There are two other choices for our City Council to consider if they have the political will.

  1. City workers' pensions are creating large unfunded pension liabilitiesMake beneficiaries pay more. With the city covering 100 percent of the unfunded liability, the problem will continue to grow. There will be minimal reforms because the actuarial losses fall on the taxpayer. Capping the employer contribution at a fixed percentage of salary would cut pension costs for the city. As pension costs increase over the years, the employees will pay all the growing costs.
  2. Change when retired city employees may begin collecting pensions. This alternative solution applies to new employees only. What if police and fire could vest their generous pensions in full by age 50 or 55, as they do now, but the payments did not start until age 65? Why would that help? The reason is that even if the city makes no further contributions, the fund will have ten more years to grow. At current official pension growth rates, that would more than double the fund’s value over those ten years. Also, the retirement payment period would be ten years shorter, given the same life expectancy. Such a system would still offer retirement security, but it would start at what most of us consider average retirement age.

Public sector employees may resist the changes but this solution makes sense. Private sector employees don’t get their full social security until 65 or even 67, depending their birth year.

Examining How Much City Employees Make

In 2019, 92 of the top 100 salaries on the city payroll are police officers and firefighters. Every one of the Top 100 earns more than $216,762 in pay and benefits. For perspective, the average family in Ventura earns $66,000 per year with two wage earners.

Raw Political Power Behind Unfunded Pension Liabilities

Ventura’s city employee unions negotiate higher and higher salary increases disregarding any concern that the money may not be available to pay their pensions once they retire. Union negotiators believe a virtually ironclad guarantee exists for the workers to whom the city promised the pension benefits. So, many Councilmembers accepted the same thing, although it’s no longer valid. A Federal Bankruptcy Court ruled otherwise in January 2015.

CALPERS argued that the California Constitution guaranteed the union contracts and thereby pension benefits from cuts. And if the court didn’t agree, they pleaded that they enjoyed sovereign immunity and police powers as an arm of the state. And if the court still disagreed, they argued that they have a lien on municipal assets.

The Federal Bankruptcy Court effectively threw them out of court, saying, “It is doubtful that CALPERS even has standing.   In his opinion, Judge Christopher Klein writes “It does not bear the financial risk from reductions by the City in its funding payments because state law requires CALPERS to pass along the reductions to pensioners in the form of reduced pensions.”

Judge Klein further stated, “CALPERS has bullied its way about in this case with an iron fist” and “that their arguments are constitutionally infirm in the face of the exclusive power of Congress to enact uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy…”.

The impact of this decision is that CALPERS cannot stop cities from modifying pensions. Yet, the Ventura City Council appears unaware of the findings.

Editors Comments

Past retirement pension negotiations were based on union bargaining and raw political power, creating a gap between what politicians promised and what cities can really pay. We offer some solutions, but it will take political will to bring the retirement benefits back to reality. Changing the system is the only way these promised benefits can be sustainable and dependable for retirees. It’s also the only way that taxpayers can afford to pay for them.

Write Directly To Your City Councilmember To Insist They Address Ventura’s Unfunded Pension Liabilities

Below you’ll find the photos of our current City Council. Click on any Councilmember’s photo and you’ll open your email program ready to write directly to that Councilmember.

Sofia Rubalcava hasn't addressed unfunded pension liabilities Doug Halter Needs To Address Unfunded Pension Liabilities in Ventura
2021 Ventura City Councilmembers Erik Nasarenko hasn't addressed unfunded pension liabilities
Jim Friedman hasn't addressed unfunded pension liabilities Lorrie Brown hasn't addressed unfunded pension liabilities
Joe Schroeder Needs To Address Unfunded Pension Liabilities in Ventura

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Pension Redux

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“Stupidity is also a gift of God but one mustn’t misuse it.”
—Pope John Paul II

PENSION OBLIGATIONS REVISITED

On March 11th the City Council was informed that the $12 million reserve that we have had since 1992 isn’t available as we had been led to believe. Although the General Fund has about $28 million, including this $12 million dollar reserve, by the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year had been “committed” or “promised” to someone or something. This includes such things as a $5.4 million dollar loan to the Ventura Redevelopment Agency or the $2.4 million set aside for the Jobs Investment Fund.

These promises are in fact liabilities, money we that we owe. If all of the promises are fulfilled and the RDA successor agency is unable to pay back their loan, the General Fund would only have $4.3 million. Not discussed or mentioned at this Council meeting were the other debts and liabilities, in particular the unfunded public pension debts. Those obligations have increased 97.4%. since our report to you 4 years ago.

The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) is an annual financial report detailing the financial condition of our City.

We start with the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). This is an annual financial report detailing the financial condition of our City. These numbers are accurate, but bear in mind that by the time we see the reports the data is 18 months after the fact. Further, you have to look in the footnotes to discover those debts which are “off the books” like the City pension program, which is administered by CALPERS.

What follows is an extract from the 2008 CAFR, as it related to the status of the City pension plan then. The third column reflected how much we owed to employees and retired employees as of the date of the report. The category of “safety” covers police and fire pensions and all other employees are carried in the “Miscellaneous Employees group”. Our unfunded liability totaled $48,673,594.

In the same year the revenue collected by the general fund totaled $88.7 million, of which $47.1 million (53.1%) was spent exclusively on police and fire departments. The percentage of our general budget paid to police and fire has increased dramatically whereas other employee costs have remained relatively stable. In 2009 59.9% of our total budget was allocated to public safety, 57.7% in 2010 and 53% in 2011. That did not include the “unfunded pension obligations”.

CalPERS increases unfunded pension liability costs to Ventura

In 4 years UNFUNDED PENSION OBLIGATIONS INCREASED 97.4% and now total $96,099,169.00.

These unfunded obligations accrued interest year after year, at the rate of 7.75%. CALPERS did not recover the substantial losses (reported by some news sources as 50% )as a result of the 2008 recession. They also did not earn the 7.75% annual projected investment returns until just recently. On the Legislative side efforts at the State and local level to move from a defined benefit plan to a 401(k) plan for new hires failed. Our City did try to address the problem by requiring current employees to contribute 4% of their compensation toward their own retirement plan, but it was piteously short. In 4 years UNFUNDED OBLIGATIONS INCREASED 97.4% and now total $96,099,169.00.

CALPERS is quick to point out that over a 20 year period the” return for each fiscal year ranged from -24% to +21.7%., and if we let them continue to manage our pension plan they “assume” we will get a return of 7.50%. But, if we want out and want to run our own program they use a 4.82% rate of return. We really owe $350,848,292. (See attached Hypothetical Termination liability for each plan).

 

PUBLIC PENSIONS OR BOND HOLDERS – AT RISK

[WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE GOOSE IS GOOD FOR THE GANDER]

Last year the Governor’s office and legislature announced that they had achieved “pension reform”. The reality is that they did not change any of the current pension benefits. They did this mainly for political reasons, but also because it is widely assumed that employees in the public pension system are protected by the constitutional ban on “impairing the obligations of contracts”.

Public employee unions have stridently asserted that they are different and thus bullet proof. This attitude was displayed clearly when the City of Stockton filed bankruptcy. That City told their bond holders and/or their insurers to take less, but refused to reduce the $29 million it pays each year to CALPERS for the employee benefits.

Assured Guaranty Ltd, which insured the Stockton bonds, stood to lose $100 million. They filed a complaint in the bankruptcy court claiming that Stockton had targeted the bondholders to take a loss, but continued to pay CALPERS without any reduction or did not seek any benefit reductions from the public labor unions.

Another insurer, National Public Finance, added their voice to the controversy, supported the Assured Guaranty position, but also alleged that the City of Stockton “rather than face the hard realities imposed by its unbearable liability to CALPERS (decided) to take a pass” – in short, that it was easier to sacrifice the bond holders than face the political wrath of the public employees or CALPERS.

So, the bond insurers asked the bankruptcy judge, Christopher Klein, to declare the City’s bankruptcy plan as inadequate because it ignores the pension debt, and they seek to compel the City to reduce its pension payments. The CALPERS reaction was to argue to Judge Klein that the pension payments have a higher priority over bonds. CALPERS lost.

In December, 2012, Judge Klein rejected the CALPERS constitutional inviolability of contract argument and ruled:

“While a state cannot make a law impairing the obligations of contract, Congress can…the goal of the bankruptcy code is adjusting the debtor-creditor relationship. Every discharge impairs contracts”.

So, what will happen to the benefits of the public pension contracts or the bond holders? CALPERS, those in the Stockton pension plan and the bond holders may both lose. This chapter is soon to be written.

EDITORS’ COMMENTS:

A 97.4% increase in unfunded liabilities over a 4 year period is setting Ventura up for failure. Most citizens don’t realize that Ventura will pay $13.3 million to CALPERS for 2012-2013. This is over and above salaries and other benefits. As more employees choose to retire early (50-60 years of age) this only gets worse.

Call it what you will, but the City Council thus far has adopted a profligate fiscal plan of doing nothing to pay this unfunded obligation. Hoping that the economy will rev up, that inflation will chip away at the obligation, or that somehow our pension assets will produce magnificent returns is foolish.

When the Council considers its new budget in June we urge them to set aside a percentage of our annual revenue to add to our reserve and/or apply to the unfunded pension obligations, and to release some of the commitments it has made to the General fund cash balance.

 

Editors:

B. Alviani         K. Corse             T. Cook

J. Tingstrom    R. McCord        S. Doll

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