by rondelord | Feb 3, 2015 | Fire, Labor, Pensions, Police, Politics, Public Employees (Non-Sworn), Unions
The three largest cities in Riverside County are still having difficulty in fully funding public employee pension costs. The emergent problem of rising unfunded liabilities, soaring costs and falling investment returns have been a long-time coming. The challenge for...
by rondelord | Feb 3, 2015 | Collective Bargaining, Fire, Labor, Pensions, Police, Politics, Unions
ROCKFORD — Rep. Joe Sosnowski (R-Rockford) says there is just no way Illinois can tax its way out of an estimated $110 billion in unfunded state pension liabilities and another $50 billion in health care costs for state retirees, and so he’s proposing...
by rondelord | Jan 26, 2015 | Collective Bargaining, Fire, Labor, Pensions, Police, Politics, Public Employees (Non-Sworn), Unions
When former Enron trader and Texas billionaire John Arnold donated more than $1 million to a November 2014 initiative to reform the public pension system in Phoenix, pension activists took notice. Arnold’s donation to Proposition 487, also known as the Phoenix Pension...
by rondelord | Jan 26, 2015 | Collective Bargaining, Fire, Labor, Pensions, Police, Politics, Public Employees (Non-Sworn), Unions
Chicago faces a $300 million deficit in 2016 with shortfalls continuing “for the forseeable future” — even before piling on $20 billion in pension liabilities that have saddled the city with the “worst credit rating of any major city other than Detroit.” And if state...
by rondelord | Jan 26, 2015 | Collective Bargaining, Pensions, Police, Politics, Unions
The dispute between the cops and the mayor is partly about an election—not the mayor’s, but that of Patrick Lynch, head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, whom dissidents want to unseat. Like some other elected officials, Mr. Lynch uses...
by rondelord | Jan 20, 2015 | Fire, Labor, Pensions, Police, Politics, Public Employees (Non-Sworn), Unions
TRENTON — Some 800,000 people, working and retired, are beneficiaries of New Jersey’s pension system, a collection of funds going deeper into the red. It’s a system that Gov. Chris Christie, in his State of the State address last week, called “an insatiable beast.” In...
