What is never mentioned in these articles is the fact that for 20 years the Managers of that fund who was appointed by the Governor used inflated interest expectations on the fund to give the Governor a justification from funding it the way the Constitution says they were supposed to. The legislature goes along with it because the “savings” to the State gets doled out elsewhere like State Development Authority that buys jobs at 500,000 each...
Had the State done what they should have there would have been plenty of funds instead of what it is now. They were even so craven with their interest expectations they Gave out an extra Check (13 instead of 12) for a few years to the retirees.
The biggest check that is cut a month out of this retirement fund is Former Governor John Engler and former Lt. Governor Cherry.
Imagine that! The same two that played games with it’s funding ...
We have a similar and related problem with our Social Security trust fund. For years, it ran a surplus with income coming from baby boomers. Those excess funds should have stayed put for when they would be needed to fund baby boomer SS benefits. But no, like any government account with a surplus, our beloved Congress raided the Social Security trust fund in the fat years and replaced the surplus with IOUs. Now, that same body is crying about the shortfall in SS, which is a shortfall their predecessors created.
We need a purge - big time!!