by Ron DeLord | Jan 10, 2017 | Collective Bargaining, Fire, Labor, Pensions, Police, Politics, Public Employees (Non-Sworn), Unions
Los Angeles, CA–There are certain respects in which Los Angeles, for all its innate advantages, feels like an unsustainable city. It has the nation’s largest homeless population, the worst traffic, and numerous other service failures. Lack of money...
by Ron DeLord | Nov 27, 2016 | Collective Bargaining, Fire, Labor, Police, Politics, Public Employees (Non-Sworn), Unions
Thunderclaps have an echo; the bigger the boom, the bigger the reverberation. On November 8, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, revealing the smarty-pants set in Washington DC to be not so smart after all. Ten days later, on November 18, the...
by Ron DeLord | Jul 23, 2016 | Collective Bargaining, Fire, Labor, Pensions, Police, Politics, Public Employees (Non-Sworn), Unions
New Jersey’s fiscal and economic future depends on how we answer a simple question: Do we have the courage to reform a broken pension system that’s driving us towards insolvency? There are some hopeful signs that the answer is “yes,” but if the state legislature gets...
by Ron DeLord | May 4, 2016 | Collective Bargaining, Fire, Labor, Pensions, Politics, Public Employees (Non-Sworn), Unions
Are American governments making promises that American taxpayers can’t keep? The answer may well be “yes” when it comes to public pensions. Unfunded pension liabilities, or the difference between what’s been promised to future retirees and what’s actually on hand to...
by Ron DeLord | Mar 27, 2016 | Collective Bargaining, Fire, Labor, Pensions, Police, Politics, Public Employees (Non-Sworn), Unions
It’s said that sunlight is the best disinfectant. But unless the Republican-led Congress steps up, the fetid world of public employee pension financing may remain a danger to taxpayers and government budgets. As I’ve discussed several times over the past week, the...