Jackson Jambalaya

Move along. Nothing to see here. According to ChiliCheeseTater we need to kick the can down the road, er, it is important to take the looonnnnggggg view.

Here we go again. A bunch of retirees continue to be added to a program destined for insolvency.

Why not stop allowing people to participate and figure out a way to fund obligations until the program is phased out.

For SFX, I AM NOT SAYING ELIMINATE PERS, I am saying, STOP ALLOWING NEW PARTICIPANTS and let them contribute to their own retirement while funding existing obligations.

I've got a question because I'm not very familiar with PERS.

Looking at the numbers, the current system sucks and won't work.

Do you raise the contribution level of the participants?
If that won't fix it, do you stop adding folks to it and let it play out?
Do you try different investments, which I personally don't think will work because returns suck right now.

Something is so out of whack with this system.

Does this take into account the new discount rate?

Kangaroo: 'Stop allowing new participants when'? Tomorrow? What about those who have participated for ten years. Five. Twenty? At what point do you gut the program and snatch away the benefits? A retirement program is like any other benefit; sick leave, vacation, company car, corner office, housing allowance. They're nothing but recruiting tools designed to attract and retain people.

Your idea is similar to that of an employer who decides to suddenly discontinue its 401k program or pension program, or suddenly discontinue group insurance and tell employees to suck it up.

Your suggestion to 'let them contribute to their own retirement' makes no sense since they already do.

Other states are looking at some really tough options and some are not at all palatable to participants, but might be necessary. I've heard of NO other state that joins you in favoring shit-canning the program altogether. Maybe you know something all the financial wizards don't.

So far, all I see is Tate bashing and a food fight between Kanganuts and Shadowbum. I was hoping for more substantive comments from the readers. Oh well, Guess there is nothing to see here, move along.

I've seen it done before. I've gone through it. Twice. It can be done. You do not allow new recipients into the program - these people go ahead and will have a 401K, which is self-funded with a match. Those already on the program will continue to contribute with option to freeze benefits and contribute to self-directed plan.

It is not a question of if, it is a question of when. With a deficit of 42% funding, there is a big nut to solve for and having more participants pay in to pay existing benefits is almost criminal - ie. Ponzi.

I'm curious, because obviously the state is not doing a great job of safeguarding the retirement system currently set up; what do current PERS contributors think? With the amount of pensions out there that are in similar situations as SFX alludes to; are you willing to let the state continue down this path with the "hope things will change?" Or, are you more willing to go ahead and freeze your pension and take control of your financial future yourself?

We always hear about "Social Security" not being there in the future. What happens when the Feds decide to abandon the Pension Guarantee in order to pay Federal Social Security? Not too far out of the realm of possibilities. At least you would get your "guaranteed" benefits, albeit at a reduced rate. Ever heard of the concept "austerity"?

SFX - Do you or will you receive PERS? A simple yes or no will do.

And I swear SFX you are a Liberal.

Goldman Sachs' Muppet?

What is it you want KF? PERS is a mess that only keeps getting worse. How many times and in how many ways can those here comment that PERS is very screwed up and the cavalry is nowhere to be seen?

It's pretty much gotten to the point that everyone knows there is a serious funding problem with PERS, but everyone also knows the people with the power to fix it won't.

The employer (taxpayer funded) conribution rate is increasing again this year, but it is like trying to stop the Titantic from sinking by using a bunch of buckets to bail out the water.

The only long-term fix is to either cut benefits (political suicide) or just go ahead and disband the whole system.

My personal opinion is they need to roll the benefit payouts back to the levels they were in 1999 before the legislature gave the huge increase. They made the increase retroactive to all existing retirees, they can make the cut retroactive as well.

Full disclosure, both my wife and I are in the PERS system. I do want what I was promised, but I would rather settle for what the system can support rather than take the chance that my benefits will be cut by half just because the idiotic leadership can't bear to tell the existing retirees they are drawing out WAAAYYYY more than the system can handle.

Now that is common sense. God Bless You!

I suppose Kingfish keeps hoping some wizard will drop out of a tree and post something really earth-shattering on this subject. As was just asked (above), what more can be said. What is it KF wants to see in print to validate posting this redundant link forty times?

No Kangaroot, I have no personal interest in this situation but am a tax payer and know several state employees. But, what business of yours is my personal situation one way or the other? Can I attribute all your goofy-assed posts to how wrapped around the axle you are personally?

PERS is indeed a ponzi. So is Social Security. So is a life insurance policy. So is health insurance.

So is Sears' warranty on its riding mowers. If one customer has enough successful warranty claims which exceed the amount Sears made off him to begin with, there are thousands of others out there pumping into the Sears coffers to fix the warranty-guy's mower. It's only at the point where every customer bombards Sears with warranty claims that Sears realizes it's in the shitter. At that point Sears either increases the price of riding mowers or reduces its warranty terms. They don't decide to stop selling lawn mowers, as Kangaroot would suggest.

Great, the party of no ideas, and its cutcutcut policy. We are already paying 5X more than the average private sector employee. We are quickly approaching 25% of our paycheck taken in retirement alone. Could you live on that? When you havent had a pay raise in a decade?

I'm sure next July will see cuts to state agencies, causing even more people to retire.

How about Phil comes up with an idea to raise revenue? I say raise taxes, but there are other options that wont cause him to get tossed out of his party.

What about legalising weed? The taxes on it and the tourism would pull us out of 50th place. Might not be popular at Phils church, but he needs to make the hard decision.

If you want to pay higher taxes 7:27 may I suggest that you move to Jackson where they'll be happy to bend you over.

This subject doesn't have anything to do with retirement or finance or promises made. It is about political courage. There are many ways to solve this problem, but they all require a haircut for everyone involved - state employes, retirees and taxpayers - and it takes a lot of political courage to purposely alienate that many voters. Someone will do it, and history will treat them kindly even if the PERS participants don't, but I don't think it will be anytime soon. Bill Billingsley

I'm with Bill. Haley had the courage.

October 25, 2012 9:54 PM: thanks for the post. Good points.

Don't be disappointed KF. This is a hard issue to solve because any step that is taken is going to hang someone out to dry. Honestly, I think we need someone who has the power to just step up and say---we've gotten 10 possible solutions from 10 different accounting firms. We are going with this one.

A dumb question: what about the possibility of giving the participants the $ in their accounts to let them invest on their own? They could set up their own Roth as a retirement.

9:24 That might be okay with younger participants but people close to retirement age probably don't want to take a chance on possible wild fluctuations in the foreseable future versus a guaranteed payout with the risk resting the state instead of themselves.

thanks for answering, 10:55.

I don't know what correct answer is to PERS. It has to be addressed.

Effective 7/1/13, all new state employee's will participate in a defined contribution retirement program. On everyone else, let's roll up our sleeves make the tough calls on who owes what and move on. We can figure this out...Bill's right, there will be pain involved but it's past time.

KF, while we're talking about PERS, how about taking a look at that boondoggle SLuRP! I'd like to see the numbers on that thing. Time for an expose' on SLRP. I'll bet most taxpayers don't even know about it, and the legislators certainly aren't going around talking about it.

4:49; How dare you mention SLuRP on this blog! Both Kingfish and Kangaroot have told us multiple times that's a minor, peripheral issue of little import and has been discussed before. Never minid that it's passage and continuation speak volumes. Class dismissed!

Wait! Did someone say 'Haley had the courage'? When?

The lawmakers & state leadership needs to take away their special perks in concert with their austerity policies. Technocratic solutions can work for brief period, but if our economic downturn continues...everything will be on the table. Undoing the Musgrove PERS policies would be a proper place to start for the austerity.

What is interesting is while PERS enjoyed these returns from 2004 to 2007:

2004: 14.6%
2005: 9.8%
2006: 10.7%
2007: 18.9%

The funding level decreased from 79% to just under 74%.

Shadow, once again you are lying and lying alot. You falsely accuse me of commenting under other names and show no evidence whatsoever. Then you make this stupid claim about me ignoring SLRP. Well, I'm the one who brought SLRP to everyone's attention in this town and the one who pushed it. Go look at the SLRP posts on here and then compare the dates on them to the SLRP stories in the media.

The fact is Shadow you are a lying, immature spoiled brat who has poor reading comprehension skills and says whatever comes to mind, regardless of whether its true or not. You wonder why I show you know respect on this website? Because when you falsely accuse me of things on here, I'm not going to be nice to you. I should just show everyone one day in one posts all of your comments I have not approved so they can see why you are complaining about me censoring you. I suspect everyone will agree with m.

As to me I've been very voal about slurp, I just don't go around publicizing it here. And I agree with KF! Although I will go a bit further and say, it is a rare occurrence that Sfax contributes anything of substance, especially on this issue. The approach of attacking the messenger is getting old. I don't mind differing opine, that is why I am a fan of this blog, but the immature nana boohoo is getting very old indeed.

You two children just cannot stand for anyone to call you out or state a differing opinion. The subject of PERS has come up on this blog on a monthly basis for at least a year. Anytime SLRP is mentioned, we're told to go read the archives, that it's a minimal issue that's been discussed before. That's untrue. Although it may have much less impact monetarily at the end of the day, it's telling in many ways and is an important consideration, regardless of what KR and his primary cheerleader think.

Kingfish; you posted that early this morning. I hope you're OK.

Hey SFX.

Here are the facts:

SLRP is a perk above a perk.

PERS is a perk.

I've personally made public statements to my representative in wide media to address the closing of the SLRP perk.

It is not, from a mathematical standpoint, going to bankrupt the State.

PERS will, along with the minor portion of SLRP, need to be dealt with. Your continued avoidance of any real substance of discussion is obvious.

SO, I rename you SlurppyFax. Because you want us to talk about it, so we will with every mention of you.

It's not that I 'want you to talk about it'. It's that I want the legislature to not overlook it in its deliberations. I don't give a rat's ass what YOU talk about. I remember a year ago when I first visited this board and PERS was a point of discussion. I typed that we should not overlook SLRP and I mentioned Charlie Capps' shenanigins in crafting the original legislative retirement debacle and future selfish, greedy attempts to double it. At that time YOU admonished me to read the archives as that had already been discussed and was old business.

Yet when this subject comes up again and again, MOST thinking citizens either don't know what SLRP is or do feel it should be on the table, regardless of your and Kingfish's incessant chirping that SLRP only has minimal financial impact. If nothing else, it's a supreme indictment of the body who makes these decisions behind closed doors.

PERS, in its entirety, including municipal, highway patrol and SLRP should all be on the table and available for scrutiny and discussion. And I cringe to think that the legislature will likely be the body to make decisions. Who can forget their attempt in '98 to double their own retirement through trickery? I was walking the halls challenging that madness then. Where were you?

Those who have watched interviews with the man who resigned publicly from Goldman Sachs should know that most ALL pension /retirement funds are in trouble because the Wall Street sees the heads of these funds as " marks"...or " muppets" as they are called in Britain.
They are regarded as "marks" because they naively are willing to trust money managers to manage the money wisely rather than to manage it to maximize the profits of Goldman Sachs et al.
When profit for money managers is based on the amount of the investment and not on the amount of the return, this is what happens.