Free Republic

The Maryland state retirement and pension system is in bad shape. The deluxe benefits package has $37 billion in assets, but even that amount isn’t enough to meet the promises made to government bureaucrats. In the last fiscal year, this prodigious sum was invested in a way that yielded a negligible 0.36 percent return. That would be bad enough, but State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, chairman of the pension-system trustees, insists on pretending the fund is earning 7.75 percent for the purposes of calculating future value. This accounting gimmick masks the dire situation of the program’s finances. Retirement funds are generally...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he will send layoff notices to up to 625 city employees today as he tries to close a $30 million budget hole. Custodians, call center operators at the city's water department and seasonal workers at the Department of Transportation will be among those affected. Emanuel said he will close an entire $30 million budget hole left by the expiration of a deal with City Hall labor unions for unpaid days off. The mayor previously had turned up the pressure on unions for concessions or cost-cutting ideas at a series of news conferences. "It has been two...

The drop reported Thursday is enough to trigger an automatic increase in the amount the state must pay into the nation’s second largest public pension fund. Payments from California’s general fund will increase by 20 percent in the coming fiscal year, to $688 million.

"...There were no disclaimers saying this is subject to change and nowhere did it indicate that “past performance is not indicative of future results” as these pillars of rectitude require of all private sector companies to slap on their literature. Madoff put out those similar fraudulent performance statements, although his at least had the standard market risk disclosures; so..." continued

Syria was said to have halted military exercises amid a troop epidemic. The Syrian opposition has asserted that President Bashar Assad ordered the suspension of military training. Assad was said to have issued the order in mid-June 2010 amid an epidemic of diarrhea at army camps. The Syrian military, said to have come under increasing domination by Iran, has not acknowledged the training suspension.

Last year, Huntington Indiana's Mayor Steve Updike started laying off workers and this year changed trash pick up to bi weekly because of a budget shortfall. He then went on to propose a service fee for the citizens of Huntington. He has since brought some emergency workers back and started weekly trash pick up. That leaves the service fee.....

Back in November, Huntington's Mayor Updike layed off six firefighters and closed the east end fire station because of a budget shortfall. Now these life savers will be back on the job due to the receiving a "Safer Grant" totaling over $800,000....

Making good on a promise to cut city costs, Huntington Mayor Updike has cut trash pickup to the first and third weeks of the month. This new schedule started in March and has already caused a problem with Huntington citizens.

The Navy and Marine Corps face a much larger shortfall of fighter jets than expected, four senior members of the House Armed Services Committee warned Defense Secretary Robert Gates. In a letter to Gates, the lawmakers said Pentagon assumptions of a shortfall of 100 fighter jets are “too optimistic.” Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) signed the letter along with ranking Republican Rep. Buck McKeon (Calif.). Two other panel members with jurisdiction over Navy programs, Reps. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) and Todd Akin (R-Mo.), also signed the letter to Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of...

OKLAHOMA CITY – Everywhere you look, people are talking about budget cuts in Oklahoma. This week, an Associated Press article reported that in the state Senate, there is a battle over the state’s $669 million budget shortfall and cuts that would need to be made to senior nutrition programs. At the end of February, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government reported Oklahoma was No. 1, with the fifth consecutive quarterly drop in tax collections. Oklahoma, which had largely weathered the maelstrom, is starting to feel the effects. And in a recent editorial in The Oklahoman, headlined “We’re No. 1:...

Giant California pension funds may lower earnings expectations dkasler@sacbee.com Published Wednesday, Mar. 03, 2010 Bruised by heavy losses and wary of the economic road ahead, California's two big public pension funds are considering reducing their official forecasts of future investment results. Such changes would have huge implications for taxpayers and public employees. A reduction in the investment projections would put more pressure on taxpayers and workers to support the two retirement systems, which already are significantly under-funded. The less the California Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers' Retirement System believe they'll earn from their investments, the more...

Plummeting tax revenue and the rising cost of social programs have played their part in the budget mess facing California. But there's another major factor - the faulty assumptions the state's leaders have made in passing previous years' spending plans. Nearly a third of the $20 billion deficit that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed addressing with deep cuts to services Friday consists of reductions approved in the current budget that didn't pan out, and expected revenue that never came in. And the governor's new plan counts on the state receiving billions of additional dollars from sources that are problematic at best....

A couple of weeks ago, the City of Huntington found that there was a 1.7 million dollar shortfall in tax revenues. After the failed .....

Another night in the great direct-democracy known as California. Facing a minimum $15 billion budget shortfall, voters rejected a series of ballot items that would've closed the state's crisis-level deficit through tax hikes and spending cuts (it's the tax hikes that were the real no go). All of the measures had been expected to fail, even though Governor Schwarzenegger supported them.

U.S. Highway 281 Presentation >> Priority 1: Spend $75 million to build five overpasses in Falfurrias.>> Priority 2: A $13 million Ben Bolt overpass at Farm-to-Market Road 2508 is proposed to create a safer school zone and eliminate another traffic barrier.>> Priority 3: Dedicate anywhere from $40 million to $104 million to build tolled relief route around Premont or upgrade the existing route with tolled freeway lanes.>> Priority 4: A $50 million project in George West to build connectors to U.S. Highway 59 and Interstate 37.McALLEN -- Whether the route is eventually called Interstate 69 or the Trans-Texas Corridor, four...

Savor the occasional cause for optimism that top leaders can value teamwork over turf in the contentious area of transportation financing. Take the years of squabbling over how Texas can scrape up billions of dollars to catch up with road-building needs. Suddenly, there's positive movement, first from Gov. Rick Perry last week. He told this newspaper's transportation writer, Michael Lindenberger, that he would not use his veto to obstruct a move by lawmakers to index the lagging motor-fuels tax to inflation. "If it is the will of the people, and of the Legislature, I suspect I would go along with...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Public investment funds based in Texas could invest directly in transportation projects through a new corporation under a plan unveiled on Thursday by the state's legislative leaders and the governor. Texas has the nation's biggest road privatization plan but the legislature, reacting to criticisms that developers were enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers, enacted a two-year moratorium. That has crimped road-building projects and led to a series of clashes between the governor and the legislature, who now have agreed on a compromise plan. Developers, including overseas companies, investment banks and private equity funds all vie...

(KCPW News) Utah lawmakers took tips on highway funding from a Texas legislator this morning. Texas Republican Representative Mike Krusee joined them on Capitol Hill. He told the Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee that with federal money drying up, the only way to pay for new highways is to make them toll roads. "Guess how many roads pay for themselves in taxes? Zero. Not a one. Most of them are less than 50 percent," said Krusee. "Imagine if you're a grocery a store owner, and you decide, I'm gonna sell sirloin at a buck a pound, and I'm gonna sell...

At least 29 states plus the District of Columbia, including several of the nation’s largest states, faced an estimated $48 billion in combined shortfalls in their budgets for fiscal year 2009 (which began July 1, 2008 in most states.) At least three other states expect budget problems in fiscal year 2010. In general, states closed these budget gaps through some combination of spending cuts, use of reserves or revenue increases when they adopted a fiscal year 2009 budget. At this point in the year, most states have already adopted those budgets; only two states — California and Michigan — continue...

Waiting Game: Governor's refusal to freeze state spending has ominous consequences By Tom Patterson, Governor Janet Napolitano recently vetoed bills to freeze state hiring and spending, in spite of a state budget deficit of more than $1 billion. It has been clear since last July that the revenues for fiscal year 2008, which ends June 30, would not be nearly sufficient to support the gigantic spending increases in the last four state budgets. During the Governor's first term, real general fund expenditures increased 54 percent, 29 percentage points more than population and inflation, combined. The governor could have called for...