Texas Municipal Retirement System cities brace for shortfall and impacts (Here come 'da taxes)

The Dallas Morning News ^ | January 24, 2008 | ELIZABETH LANGTON

[Muleteam1]

A state pension fund used by more than 820 Texas cities – including most of those in North Texas – faces a $1.7 billion funding shortfall. And fixing the situation will force some cities to raise taxes, cut future retirees' benefits or both. (story continued at link here.

[Muleteam1]

It looks like some of us are in for another property tax increase. Early yesterday morning I heard one of these "paid programming" station guys who tells you how to make money on tax sale properties say how he had recently bought some Texas acreage at $90 per acreage (who knows where) then boast that he would sell it at the "market value." My comment before changing the channel, was "call me when you sell it." I'm not sure who he was talking to, but my experiences with Texas properties have been similar to my experiences with Fords, second and third degree burns.

[RSmithOpt]

Someone do an accounting audit on that fund, and there’s a better than even chance, the fund has been raided to support other social programs.....support of illegals?

[freekitty]

Wonder what ripoffs there are going to be out there.

[freekitty]

It’s bad enough that Guiliani’s law firm is part of the super hwy mess and it’s been rumoured he may ask that kneejerk we laughingly call a Gov here in Texas(Perry)as VP. Also, the wicked witch of Washington DC because she stays away from Tx people as much as she can; Kay Baily Hutchinson wants to run for Gov. I hope we run the other way. The woman doesn’t even like Tx.

[RSmithOpt]

Ain't it ironic how the gov at all levels is so tangled up in the sub-prime mess, hedge fund BS in that many of those billion dollar funds were created on junk bonds.

Those entrusted with investing peoples retirement accounts should be required to invest the same percentage amounts of their assets into those junk funds...they'd not be so quick to give the nod if their butts were on the same line.

Just the tip of the iceberg.

The government has sponsored all this with gray legislation by willful intention neglect and 'oversight'.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

Those entrusted with investing peoples retirement accounts should be required to invest the same percentage amounts of their assets into those junk funds...they'd not be so quick to give the nod if their butts were on the same line.

They probably did - "sophisticated" investors, fund managers and institutions the *most* likely to have made these sots of investments

[Eric in the Ozarks]

You’d be hard pressed to find a state or big city government that is not, in fact, potentially bankrupt, when lifetime payoffs for retirements are considered. They just continue to give pensions with no consideration on who might pay for them.

[RSmithOpt]

Wouldn’t be a problem for the pensions if there were sane government at all levels....9.2 trillion dollar federal debt and state governments ‘budgets’ out pacing the true economic growth of each state by a factor of 1/5 to 3 on average. State legislatures keep on adding programs, pandering to illegals, supporting those capable of work, but not willing to work and funding socialism and gay sex in our public schools, just to name a few. Most voters are simply ignorant or apathetic to runaway government spending and we are seeing its effects for sure at this time.

[Muleteam1]

I can’t speak for the management of TMRS, but my small west Texas town (< 5,000 people) is expanding their high school and elementary schools although the stated population is the same as it was forty years ago.

[businessprofessor]

The benefits of this plan are not clear. Many public defined benefit plans provde a benefit rate based on the highest average salary. In generous plans such as Colorado PERA, the benefit rate is 2.5% for retirees reaching the rule of 80 (service years plus age) with at least 50 years of age. A large number of retirees receive 75% of their highest average salary beginning in their 50s. The net result is that plans such as Colorado PERA are effectively paying large amounts of deferred compensation in the range of several hundred thousand for lower wage workers to 1 to 2 milliion dollars for higher paid administrators.

This Texas city plan is different. Here is the benefit summary from the TMRS website:

Your monthly benefit at retirement is based on your member deposits and interest, the city’s matching funds, other credits, your life expectancy (and your beneficiary’s, if you choose certain options), future account interest assumptions as set by law, and the monthly payment plan you choose.

It appears that members earn a bond rate interest similar to a long term bond fund. At retirement, the account balances are annuitized at some rate. I am not sure if the annuitized interest rate is above the rate paid by the private sector for lifetime income funds. It seems that this plan is not very generous. The major benefit seems to be that retirees can receive both social security and this plan without having to contribute to social security while working for a Texas municipality. If a retiree earned 40 quarters for social security before city work, the retiree can receive benefits from both despite rather little time in social security.

[RSmithOpt]

Just a prime example of unneeded government spending. They need the room to add office space for the public eduction bureaucracies. Not to mention local, state and federal politicoho's need to award new construction contracts for 3 times the actual costs to business leaders that gave them election contributions.

Get the picture?

Some new counselors have to collect data to file their multiple reports (every quarter) on how many times a year a first grader is told on school property that socialism is good and gay/lesbian/trans sex is good too and that illegal immigrants are people too that get a pass on breaking the law and your mommies and daddies have to pay for it all.

[Muleteam1]

Guiliani may believe he can fool some people into believing he is inserting conservatism into his campaign by adding a Texas governor as VP. However, most Americans know the days of cowboys and chuckwagons are long gone and the capitol building at Austin sometimes towers over the National Capitol not only in height but in liberalism.

As Will Rogers once said about all politicians, Kay Bailey Hutchison should run. Away and fast.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Is this a great country or what ?

[Muleteam1]

>>They need the room to add office space for the public eduction bureaucracies.<<

Certainly educational bureacracies are excessive sometimes but I tend to believe our County's tax problem relates more to the open invitation held out to illegals by the local farm and dairy owners.

[RSmithOpt]

BINGO!!

[K-oneTexas]

The State Auditor could audit as well as the Comptroller (I believe). But the Legislature can’t do anything till their next session in 3009. Unless Governor Perry calls a Special Session. But you can check to see who’s on the Board, maybe Perry will stall these attempts if it’s his cronies.

[RSmithOpt]

As I see it, and it's even plainly evident in the televised presidential candidate debates and analysis of those, and even on the money/market, the triple taxed government rebates coming, etc. that no one in the LSM asks the real questions concerning government spending, a 9.2 trillion dollar federal debt, record trade deficits, the tax burden on the US citizen and the real costs of illegal immigration and the willful blind eye of government at all levels. Think about it. We will not deport and consistently as a nation pay for free money to 3-50 million illegals.

Yep, asking such questions would impede the march towards Socialism and more government control.

We need to demand such and any conservative ever interviewed for local or national TV needs to always point to this and the big picture.

If Hitlery can consistently duck the "Do you want our troops to succeed in Iraq?" question and never get called on it, then, conservatives can collectively begin to bring this out (not the troop question) on the radio and TV when the opportunity presents itself.

It seems as though station managers will be fired on the spot if such responses are ever aired.

The NWO, electronic voting machines (that can't be paper traced), the MSM, the cronies in government, are pushing for a Lib or RINO to be POTUS. This is necessary for their need for socialism and more government control and more money in the governments' hands.

The government within the government is all out for Hitlery, McLame, or Saddam the Puppet.

I seriously doubt Romney will be elected unless he's agreed already to willfully have his chain yanked by the GWTG (government within the government.

Many say I'm full of sh$t on the conspiracy angle, however, Kaye Bailey's ability to single-handedly strip border fence funding in a bill (amendments) the night before its vote in the Senate, is by far case in point and a huge flag.

W's and Congress's immediate decision for a rebate to make the sheeple feel good is another big flag, but then again, that money was taxed when it was made originally, will be borrowed to hand out and will be taxed the following year again by the Feds and state governments.

[freekitty]

I imagine they have the inside scoop too.

[RSmithOpt]

Those that collected all the profits up front with the subprime federally mandated loans show were in on the scoop up front.

You can bet your family's welfare on it. Recently, globally too, stocks were dumped, profits taken to cover losses on those neat new derivatives that the banks and brokers were left with.

The music stopped, they were holding the junk paper and didn't have a profit chair to sit in. Temporarily out of the game w/ respect to money.

Now, everyone (the big cats) have had their drinks, rounds of golf, dinner on a big yacht, a few gars (cigars), some rented eye candy and it's been agreed as to what the next shell game is going to be on the horizon.

As Americans, many are working like heck to build a retirement knowing that SS will only be available to illegals, the lazy or minorities in the future. However, we keep 'paying' in downturns in the form of stock losses in our 401k's, IRA's etc. The only saving point now being as the slide continues in the markets, those still left with money to buy can pick up undervalued stock with hopes of greater returns in the future if we are lucky.

[businessprofessor]

Great for some perhaps such as public employees in Colorado and other states. Uninformed voters and legislators in many states have enabled public employees to reap windfalls of deferred compensation. The worst part about the windfalls is that the public employees refuse to acknowledge the nature of the windfalls. Public employees want to pretend that their retirement compensation is the same as retirement compensation in the private sector. Their pretense is done to concurrently increase their current and deferred compensation. Admitting that their retirement compensation is much higher than the private sector would invite budget scrutiny to the wages of career employees.

I made a recent presentation to the group that controls the the annual compensation survey in Colorado. Most other states perform similar surveys. The surveys are supposed to provide a realistic comparison of compensation between the public and private sector. In the surveys, the employer contribution rate for retirement is used to compare public and private retirement compensation. The contribution rate in the public sector vastly understates the value of the pensions for career employees while the contribution rate in the private sector overstates the value of the retirement compensation.

I presented my research results that provide strong evidence that the employer's contribution rate substantially understates the compensation value of the benefits. The group was adamantly opposed to any thought that the compensation survey should be revised. In some cases, they openly mocked the utter suggestion that retirement compensation in the public sector is much higher than the private sector. Here are some idiotic comments made by this group:

• Using private sector interest rates for purchasing lifetime annuities is ridiculous. I have friends in the securities industry who can guarantee a 13% interest rate using put and call options.
• The private sector gets social security.
• To provide lifetime income in the private sector, one should purchase a lifetime annuity every year to provide a higher interest rate.
• How dare a university professor talk to me about retirement compensation.
• The private sector has many other forms of compensation not available to the public sector so retirement compensation in the public sector should be much higher.