WEST VIRGINIA – One of the things brought up during Thursday night’s City Council meeting was the city’s pension fund. President of the Landlord’s Association and former council member Martin Shaffer stated that the council’s budget has not been paying enough money into that fund, and that there are $47 million in unfunded liabilities that could harm the future of pensions.
“We have a $47 million debt on the pension fund that we haven’t funded, and we don’t have any more. We can’t pay that, and the thing is we have all these people that work for Clarksburg that are near retirement age. Where are we going to get the money to pay them? We don’t have it,” Shaffer told 5 News before the regularly scheduled council meeting.
Council members took objection to this description, calling the city’s pension system “second to none.”Mayor Cathy Goings said that the budget is available for anyone to read and that the city’s finances are stable.
“There was some concern regarding are unfunded liability for our pension and as we indicated the city of Clarksburg is financially sound and can fund those pensions for many years–you know probably longer then many of us will be there–but we are financially stable and sound, and so there is no issue with the unfunded liabilities,” Goings told 5 News after the meeting.
While home rule was the main topic of Thursday’s meeting, the council is also moving forward with the acquisition and renovation of the Rosegarden Theatre.