Comments on: Atlanta budget contains pension time-bomb

By: Julian Bene

Julian Bene — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:10:56 +0000

Right on, Actuary Alice. “”The City needs to trim its pension plan.”

Some 20% of the budget is the pension expense, which is completely out of line. Council did this to us by raising the credit from 2% to 3% of salary per year served in 2001 for cops and later for the rest. Going back to the status quo ante would be a start.

Now that Shook has uttered the words on pension benefit cuts, any chance the heroes running for office can be induced to tell the truth?

As ugly as the pension situation is, retiree health is even worse. The city does not fund those obligations and they are piling up dangerously. Tough as it is, these benefit promises need to be cut back, too. Something like a Kaiser plan would help to keep Atlanta from being at the mercy of fee-happy specialists.

By: Actuary Alice

Actuary Alice — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:14:35 +0000

The City needs to trim its pension plan. The City has pressing financial woes and the revenue outlook for the foreseeable future is modest, at best. Most companies in the private sector have reduced their pension plans, and many have even terminated those plans. The City should lower the cost of its pension plans as soon as possible, and reinvest a portion of the savings into salaries to ameliorate the pension value lost by employees.

By: Andisheh Nouraee

Andisheh Nouraee — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:39:04 +0000

A time-bomb in the budget?

Good thing the bomb squad isn’t furloughed anymore.

By: Julian Bene

Julian Bene — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:30:26 +0000

At last someone’s talking about a real way to dig out of the budget crisis: Reducing pension promises that were irresponsibly increased in the past few years. Shook would be more credible if he’d opposed that at the time. But this is progress.

Now how about finding the missing property and sales tax revenues – or at least stanching the bleeding?