Free Republic

When both Democratic and Republican lawmakers recently joined together to support a taxpayer-funded, multibillion-dollar bailout of big union pension funds, you didn’t need to be a “swamp” creature to know something has gone terribly wrong in Washington, D.C. But that is exactly what happened when U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the Ways & Means Committee, offered a so-called bipartisan plan to address the pension crisis. However, this proposed bailout of organized labor’s retirement plans would cost federal taxpayers billions — while setting a dangerous precedent that would expose taxpayers and laborers to more financial mischief. The expectation...

Gov. Ron DeSantis did something Friday his predecessor would not: Let former Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes leave office with her dignity intact. DeSantis did away with former Gov. Rick Scott’s suspension of Snipes and accepted her resignation. Snipes welcomed the decision. “I was really concerned about restoring my name and my dignity,” Snipes told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday night. “Now there’s no shadow hanging over the office that I led for 15 years.” DeSantis said it was time to focus on the future. “The important thing is not to throw mud about what happened in the...

I have a Question about National Guard and Retirement. If someone is in the guard and has 20 years in do they retire like a person in the other military services do? Is it different? If they were in the Baby Guard in High school does that somehow count towards retirement?

Illinois ranked No. 48 in an analysis of the state’s ability to pay all of its bills, including public employers’ pension benefits, according to a new ranking of the states’ fiscal health by Truth in Accounting (TIA). Illinois was found to be short $216.1 billion to pay its bills ... The amount of the state’s shortfall in funding to pay off its bills amounts to $50,800 per taxpayer

One of the architects of Mayor Bill de Blasio's housing plan is living well at the taxpayer's expense... Anita Laremont, the executive director of the Department of City Planning, as one of four civil servants raking in more than $300,000 this fiscal year thanks to special permission to receive both a public paycheck and public-pension payments. Waivers granted under Section 211 of New York's Retirement and Social Security Law are supposed to allow the state and local governments to attract and retain employees younger than 65 ... the real number of high-earning double-dippers may be considerably greater because waivers are...

Brenda Snipes, the elections supervisor for Broward County, Fla., who resigned after coming under scrutiny for the way her office handled vote counting during the Nov. 6 election, will receive nearly $130,000 in annual pensions once she leaves office in January, according to reports. Snipes, 75, already receives a pension of more than $58,000 from her time as an educator and is poised to collect another $71,000 for 15 years as an elected official, the Sun-Sentinel reported. "Although I have enjoyed this work tremendously over these many election cycles, both large and small, I am ready to pass the torch,"...

Citing concerns about possible pension liability, Larkspur officials this week took the first step toward severing the city’s membership in the Central Marin Sanitation Agency, a wastewater organization it helped form in the late 1970s. The Larkspur City Council agreed Wednesday to give up the city’s seat on Central Marin’s six-member board of directors, which governs the infrastructure that treats sewage collected from Larkspur and other nearby areas. The council will vote on formal resolutions declaring the city’s severance at future meetings. But Larkspur’s voice won’t be completely flushed down the drain when the withdrawal is finalized, one of the...

According to Paraday’s own calculation of payment due after retirement — which included three unused personal days, 532 unused sick days and 350 unused vacation days multiplied by his nearly $2,000 per diem rate — the district owed him $1,757,229.45, documents show. Paraday allegedly permitted himself to accumulate compensatory time without limit for any day in which he worked more than eight hours, despite his contract not allowing for the accrual or use of comp time. Since fiscal year 2006, when he started as superintendent, Paraday had used 2,484.65 hours of comp time, or the equivalent of 310 days, records...

Two recent studies of public sector pay and retirement benefits show tens of thousands of retired Illinois public employees making six-figures or more in all levels of government, dwarfing figures from states with more people. ... Illinois has more than $130 billion in unfunded pension debt for its five state-run pension systems. Adding in other post employment benefits, that number climbs to more than $200 billion. Municipal governments in Illinois also are struggling with unfunded pension liability. Some report using most, if not all, of their share of property taxes to pay pension costs. Taxpayers United of America said Illinois’...

We have detailed this problem over the past 3-4 years warning people about how bad the pensions around the nation have become nothing more than another ponzi scheme. Most, if not all, state, local and federal pension programs are underfunded by 40% or more.What we stated a mere two months ago, in September 2018! The steam that is building began in earnest in 2012 and has been picking up speed ever since. Look no further than some of the recent events we have documented time and again – Detroit, CALPers, Jeremy Stein, Teamsters and Dallas Pension Fund. All of these...

https://www.kron4.com/news/california/ceo-of-california-s-350b-pension-fund-has-no-degree/1444506328 KRON4 News - CEO of California's $350B pension fund has no degree Updated: Sep 14, 2018 11:07 AM PDT SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - The chief executive of California's $350 billion pension fund does not have a college degree and the revelation has startled some retirees. Marcie Frost leads the California Public Employee Retirement System, the nation's largest retirement system. The Sacramento Bee reports that Frost did not claim to have a college degree when she was hired to lead CalPERS in 2016, but Frost is under fire now after a blogger alleged Frost implied in her application and in a...

Vanecko and Davis. Their firm made millions in fees even as retirement plans for teachers, cops, other Chicago city workers suffered big losses. A dozen years ago, five financially strapped city of Chicago pension funds invested $68 million in a shaky real estate deal put together by a former boss of resident Barack Obama and a nephew of Mayor Richard M. Daley. It was a high-risk investment. Allison S. Davis — who once headed a small Chicago law firm that gave Obama his first job out of Harvard Law School — and Daley nephew Robert G. Vanecko even warned in...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s financial team is considering borrowing billions of dollars to pour into Chicago’s ailing pension funds — a move they contend could save future taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars but experts say comes with risk. The idea is to issue bonds at relatively low interest rates and use the money to reduce the city’s $28 billion in pension debt. The pension funds would invest the bond proceeds and ideally earn returns that outpace the interest the city would have to pay on the bond debt. Issuing so-called pension obligation bonds would be a first for Chicago, which...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The house. Food on the table. Survival. Those are some of the ways workers and retirees who demonstrated in Ohio’s capital Thursday described the pension payments they are fighting to protect. “It’s everything, mostly, because you worked all of them years,” said Duane Ross, 61, of Cadiz, who spent 30 years in the mines. Ross was among thousands of unionized coal miners, iron workers, teamsters, bakers, tobacco workers, millers and others who descended on the Ohio Statehouse to rally ahead of a congressional field hearing in Columbus. They brandished signs saying “Save Our Pensions” and wore...

The disgraced Florida sheriff’s deputy who stayed outside as 17 people were slaughtered inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School maintained Tuesday that he was “never” a coward — as parents of slain students railed at him for trying to paint himself as a victim. “The families need to know. I didn’t get it right. But it wasn’t because of some, ‘Oh, I don’t wanna go into that building, oh, I don’t wanna face somebody in there.’ It wasn’t like that at all,” Scot Peterson said on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday. “I’m never gonna get over this, you know,” he said....

**SNIP** Schneiderman is eligible for a $63,000 a year pension - but the Albany Times Union reports that he has yet to file for retirement with the state. The democrat stepped down last week after reports came out that he assaulted four women.

ot Peterson, the sheriff’s deputy vilified for failing to confront the Parkland school shooter, has begun receiving a state pension of $8,702.35 a month. Peterson resigned and retired Feb. 22, a week after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he waited outside as Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and wounded 17 others. Peterson began to receive his pension in April, according to the Florida Department of Management Services. He can receive the payments for the rest of his life. The 55-year-old Peterson, a Broward deputy for 32 years, was paid $101,879.03 last year, according to sheriff’s office...

Illinois homeowners, who already pay some of the nation's highest property taxes, should pay about 40 percent more for the next three decades to wipe out the state's crippling pension debt, according to a trio of economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The economists argue that paying off the state's $129.1 billion in unfunded pension obligations cannot be done with revenue from new taxes such as a tax on marijuana sales or on financial transactions. Would you pay 40 percent more in property taxes if it would wipe out the state's crippling pension debt? Yes No See results...

April 21 (UPI) -- At least 10 people have died in Nicaragua since protests over proposed social security pension cuts started Wednesday, officials said Saturday. The violence began Wednesday in the capital of Managua when protesters took to the streets setting fires and throwing rocks as police responded with tear gas, according to the CNN report. The demonstrators were protesting planned changes to the social security, which would result in workers paying more to contribute to the social security system, but receiving cuts in pension when they retire. Thousands of students and workers had joined the protest by Thursday, the...

Harvey. Illinois is in the midst of a financial crisis that represents the tip of the iceberg ... The city of 25,000 in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago is suffering from high unemployment (22%). An astonishing 32% of the population lives below the poverty level. This is a deadly mixture that has caused catastrophic shortfalls in revenue, leading to a crisis in funding pensions for the city's retired workers. Since state law prohibits municipal bankruptcy, Harvey has been forced into a situation Illinois has never seen. In February, the state began to garnish Harvey's revenue to fund its pension...