Posted on 12/03/2014 10:29:40 AM PST by george76
Colorado’s schools and governments have about $10 billion in hidden pension and health-care benefit liability, a “sinkhole” that could cost many individual taxpayers $10,000 or more to fill, a report from the Chicago-based nonprofit Truth in Accounting found.
Sheila A. Weinberg, TIA founder and CEO, said the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association hasn’t collected enough from school districts and local governments to cover retirement costs for all the local employees.
“It is pushed off year after year until these plans don’t have enough money to pay for retirees,” she said. “They’re either going to have to raise taxes or cut benefits.”
...
An individual taxpayer will likely bear the burden of several taxing districts depending on where he or she lives and owns property.
For example, a Denver taxpayer’s burden includes $2,389 for city employees, $7,467 for Denver Public Schools, $174 for the Regional Transportation District and $3,500 for state employees.
Weinberg said much of this hidden liability will come to the forefront after next year because the Governmental Accounting Standards Board has put in rules that unfunded pension liabilities be noted on government books. But a lot of that debt has already accrued.
...
Weinberg said the hidden pension liability has allowed local politicians to increase their popularity by spending money on high-profile projects while ignoring the retirement burden.
(Excerpt) Read more at watchdog.org ...
Apparently the teachers ain’t good a math......................
Hey, no problemo. The brewpubmeister Poopenlicker will fix everything with a wave of his Marxist wand.
They have to wait until it’s a “crisis” so it HAS to be done.
I’m shocked NOT - most cities and counties in this country are looking at billions in unfunded pension liabilities.
For which the taxpayers are on the hook.
Polticians have been boosting future retirement benefits for decades to garner union support. The future funding is almost never made - meaning benefits will have to be slashed and the beneficiaries can go pound salt for beilieving and voting for these lib pols.
If that isn't the case, and this is unbonded debt, and there are no compelled budgets, then those with public retirements will likely find them severely reduced. And if they push it, they'll find them eliminated.
Cut the politician’s retirements first, namely the ones responsible for these fiscal disasters! They screw everything up and look to taxpayers to financially fix everything with more taxes. Enough! Ptui! And, make it retroactive, go after even the retired ones. Make THEM pay and suffer like the private sector folks have been.!
Take another toke and mellow out.
Cities can and have gone bankrupt.
Not just Detroit and Stockton .
Future performance on pensions, etc. then reviewed by a judge.
So the only way that the body that is elected to determine the budget to cancel budget items from previous city councils (or school boards, etc) is to go through bankruptcy? It requires another branch to step in to override the sometimes long gone city council which started the disaster?
So effectively, an eternal budget can be created until a judge gets around to putting a stop to it, but future councils can do nothing until the judge says so?
I know how it worked in San Bernardino and Stockton, neither council had the guts to actually bring the budget back in line and while they tried with a few half hearted measures, bankruptcy was a political dodge more than anything else.
In the “old days”, teachers and government workers got good pension benefits because they had job security and lower pay. Then unions were formed and pay scales were raised to competitive rates with private industry, or at least that was the union argument. As salaries escalated there was no offset against future pensions, again thanks to unions and human nature of refusing to give up what you already have. The end result was easily foreseeable but ignored by politicians and accountants. Now, with boomers retiring, the situation has hit critical mass and I predict more municipalities and states will have to seek bankruptcy protection. As pensions are reduced post bankruptcy, we will have a new problem. How do millions of public workers adjust to retirement on less that they planned to receive? Unless the politicians step in with another unrealistic solution, they will have to adjust their standard of living to meet their new income as scores of millions of workers in the private sector have done. Sadly I doubt this will happen as politicians long ago realized this was an easily controlled voting base.
Colorado “pikers,” California is way, way ahead of you with CalPers (just state and local bloodsuckers, but no teachers) underfunded by something like $500 Billion!
Offices, salaries, benefits and numbers of employees will be cut sooner or later.
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