The case for public pensions

Keep the heat on them P-T!

Well said. One thing neglected in this article is that the largest costs aren't for those already retired, but for those who will retire in the near future due to contract changes in recent years. Therefore, the statements about current retiree payouts don't really mean much. For example, what are the expected costs of a Prison guard who retires this year or the next? How much does that 10 year early retirement cost the public? The recommendations of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility make a lot of sense. Any bets on whether our union funded legislators will do anything about it?

CalPERS obviously doesn't know about Long Beach city employees. They do collect social security in addition to their outrageous pensions. It cost the taxpayers of Long Beach over $10Million last year to fund the social security payments and around $90Million to fund the pension payments. This is out of a total $365Million Dollar budget.

Robert's comments about the early retirement, plus the retroactive pensions are true; they have almost bankrupted Long Beach. Still our City Manager did not demand pension reform as part of the labor negotiations in the last round of contracts. How pitiful! Every citizen should write their city council person demanding they open up the labor negotiations to the public; it is perfectly legal to do so. I confirmed it last night at the City Council meeting.

We have allowed our City Council to literally price us out of the public safety market. At last nights' City Council meeting, there were people demanding money for more police and more funding for the children and parks. It is time the Mayor and City Council admit to these people that, due to their bad performance in the past, they have failed the citizens of Long Beach.

It is time to have an honest dialogue between the Mayor, City Council and the Citizens of Long Beach.

It is time we stand up for the taxpayers. Our city council has bankrupted our children with excessive retirements. Mayor Foster ran for office on this issue and promptly forgot everything he said.

You say that what Villalobos did was not illegal.$60 million conflict of interest? The taxpayers lost millions on this? Nothing in this state government is illegal. Look at DuVall who voted millions for companies that provided him with prostitutes. That is not "illegal" either. Yeah, right!!

The taxpayers should demand that the city provide a defined contribution retirement like the rest of the world. PERS is a multi-million dollar loser, and getting worse.

Look at Suja Lowenthal trying to increase the retirement of MWD at the expense of higher rates. The unions own our city council.

this is a huge problem.they are not telling the whole truth.this bad investing has been going on for years how much money is left.and just think in two years if 20% of the worker retire that will be 360.000 more mouths to feed at higher benfits.there is no way to fix it has to shut down. it all has to change fire them all put the ones that made these bad deals in jail and start over.

The unions virtually vote themselves raises by getting their stooges elected. Watch MWD and Suja Lowenthal. Watch the LBPD sue us for 30 years of overtime to get dressed. They are disgusting!

If we do not want to lose California altogether, we need to vote AGAINST any candidate endorsed by any union.