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Press Articles Index Article source: Period Covered: 2009- 2010 |
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| Can States Fix Their Pension Problems? May 20, 2010 - From the New York Times opinion section (Room for Debate) web-blog, A running commentary on the news. Governments across the country now are facing problems long familiar to San Diegans: spiraling pension debts. MORE>>> |
5-20-2010 | NYT |
| Public Employee Pensions Under Pressure April 23 - The LA Times reports that state and local leaders see the growing cost as a threat to California's fiscal well-being. Efforts to reduce benefits are setting up a collision course with public employee unions. Across California, state an local leaders are moving to confront the cost of public employee retirement packages - an escalating financial burden that threatens to choke off funding for other govenment services. MORE>>> |
4-23-2010 | LAT |
| Another Pension Case Bites The Dust April 7 - The Voice of San Diego reports that San Diego's pension scandal exploded as a political issue. It made San Diego a darling of the national press for all the wrong reasons. It forced a bureaucratic and politcial upheaval, forcing a once-popular mayor to resign in disgrace. It cost San Diego untold millions of dollars in investigators, lawyers and pension bills. One thing the pension scandal hasn't done, however, is enjoy much of any success in the courtroom. MORE>>> |
4-07-2010 | VSD |
| Are Pensions Fair Game in Bankruptcy? Since last fall, talk of municipal bankruptcy has wormed its way back into public debate at the city of San Diego. Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith decided they'd had enough. Last month, both dismissed the idea -- and Sanders used particular vigor -- by saying it distracted the city from its real financial problems. MORE>>> |
02/15/2010 | SDUT |
| Millions needed for city pensions Just when San Diego city officials thought they had closed a $179 million budget gap, another has opened up because more money will be needed to pay for employee pensions. The city will have to contribute $231.7 million to the retirement fund in the fiscal year that starts in July. That’s up $19 million from the forecast used when the last budget gap was closed in December. MORE>>> |
01/19/2010 | SDUT |
| San Diego's Easiest Financial Fix Is Its Most Complicated If any issue characterizes the quagmire that muddies efforts to restore the city of San Diego's fiscal health, look no further than reform of retiree medical benefits. Here it appears that the most complicated solution to the city's budget woes also could be the easiest to accomplish. There's little legal precedent and layers and layers of promises to un wind.. MORE>>> |
01/10/10 | VSD |
| Judge rules pension benefits violate city charter A Superior Court judge ruled that a contested pension benefit granted to the heads of San Diego's employee labor unions by the City Council in 2002 violated the city charter, court papers show today. The San Diego Police Officers Association filed suit earlier this year in an effort to force the city to honor the so-called ``presidential leave'' benefit, which allowed the heads of municipal labor unions to combine their salary as city workers with their union pay for the purpose of calculating pension payments. MORE>>> |
12/16/09 | SDUT |
| Mayor 'Cranky' with Bankruptcy How did San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders feel when asked last week about a draft report listing bankruptcy as an option to resolve the city's budget woes? "The mayor was being a bit cranky," mayoral spokeswoman Rachel Laing said. MORE>>> |
11/30/09 | VSD |
Court could drop pension board charges |
11/05/09 | SDUT |
| High court to hear S.D. pension case Six former members of San Diego's pension board were charged with violating the state conflict-of-interest law. Prosecutors say the trustees improperly allowed the city to under fund the pension system and linked that approval to boosted retirement benefits. Defense lawyers say the six did nothing improper. The state 4th District Court of Appeal allowed the case to move forward, but the defendants challenged that ruling. The California Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday. MORE>>> |
11/02/09 | SDUT |
| Bankruptcy: Some Explainers There were a lot of interesting people eating eggs at a breakfast panel Thursday. The city's firefighter and police unions had leaders here. Prominent conservatives and business leaders were there along with a few members of the mayor's secret kitchen cabinet including retired shipbuilder Dick Vortmann and restaurateur Dan Shea. The city attorney, Jan Goldsmith, was there. Progressive activist Norma Damashek listened as did libertarian activist Richard Rider, who chatted afterward with someone from the Reason Foundation. Lawyers were peppered through the audience. But one team was conspicuously absent: the mayor and his staff. They were probably too busy. But they've been avoiding the discussion that was going on Thursday for four years -- it would not have been out of character for them to avoid it one more time. MORE>>> |
10/26/09 | VSD |
| City service cuts, loss of jobs loom - Board nixes plan to lower annual pension payment San Diego faces significant city service cuts and the loss of up to 400 jobs after the pension board yesterday ruled against a plan that could have saved the city $31.6 million next year. The decision not to reduce the city's annual payment to its pension fund leaves even less wiggle room in the budget, which faces a deficit set to top $100 million next year. MORE>>> |
09/18/09 | SDUT |
| Pension payment tinkering defended - Officials with fund say all options to be studied San Diego pension officials yesterday defended their decision to study accounting changes that could shave $50 million off of the city's estimated $225 million payment into the retirement fund next year. Several critics, including City Councilman Carl DeMaio, lashed out at the board for broaching the subject of loosening formulas for funding future pension obligations. MORE>>> |
07/18/09 | SDUT |
| Amazing Admission: It's Either This or Bankruptcy Scott Lewis of the Voice of San Diego reports that it's $50 million. For years, the idea that the city of San Diego was nearing bankruptcy was too much like a philosophical discussion. It was a matter of preferences -- not of math. Now, we finally have a number measuring the exact distance between the city and insolvency: $50 million. The link to this story is in the "Press Articles" section of the Members-Only area. MORE>>> |
07/17/09 | VSD |
| Pension accounting changes considered - Councilman calls it 'cooking the books' Heavy losses are tempting public pension systems nationwide to tinker with accounting methods so that local governments won't have to make up for investment declines as tax revenues fall. Adjustments could mean short-term savings of tens of millions of dollars for large cities such as San Diego but result in a significant increase in future pension payments. MORE>>> |
07/16/09 | SDUT |
| City sees victory in DROP lawsuit - Appeals court rejects police union's case The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a lawsuit filed by the San Diego Police Officers' Association objecting to changes the city made to retirement programs. The union sued in 2005 after the city imposed a contract on its members that contained benefits reductions. Officers enrolled in the city's Deferred Retirement Option Plan were required to take a 3.2 percent pay cut. The program, which allows employees to collect pension payments in a special account while still employed, is sometimes criticized as double-dipping. Citywide, 1,788 employees are signed up. MORE>>> |
06/11/09 | SDUT |
| Wescoe to Goldsmith: Withdraw Your Memo The top retirement system official today requested City Attorney Jan Goldsmith withdraw his legal memo opining that a controversial deferred retirement program was never properly implemented, saying the legal research conducted by Goldsmith's office was "demonstrably incomplete." In a scathing letter, San Diego City Employees' Retirement System Administrator and CEO David Wescoe noted that Goldsmith's memo didn't address a 1996 memo from former City Attorney John Witt's office that reached the opposite conclusion of Goldsmith. MORE>>> |
06/03/09 | VSD |
| City attorney: Pension DROP was approved improperly San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith declared yesterday that a pension benefits program decried for years as a source of double-dipping was never properly approved, something that he said has escaped notice since 1997 While his predecessor, Michael Aguirre, might have seized on the finding in his all-out assault on pension benefits, Goldsmith repeatedly said he is not out to dump the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP, in San Diego. MORE>>>... |
06/03/09 | SDUT |
| When Is a Majority Vote Not a Majority Vote? City Attorney Jan Goldsmith's opinion that a controversial deferred retirement program was never properly implemented received the scorn of labor union lawyers who called his analysis flawed and preposterous Tuesday. But the argument received the support of the man Goldsmith unseated, Mike Aguirre, whose lawsuits challenging pension benefits were a hallmark of his tenure and a fulcrum of the campaign attacks by Goldsmith and Aguirre's numerous City Hall foes. MORE>>> |
06/02/09 | VSD |
| Pension Cases Slow Going, Even By Court's Standards Back in May 2005, when the first of two pension-related corruption cases was filed against former San Diego pension officials, the mayor was Dick Murphy, the new city attorney was Mike Aguirre and the trial of two city councilmen in the infamous Strippergate case was underway. Those players are long gone now. But four years later -- and counting -- eight ex-pension officials charged in a state pension case, a federal pension case, or both, are marking time, still waiting for their day in court. MORE>>> |
05/19/09 | VSD |
| Pension Scandal? San Diego Had a Pension Scandal? Who Knew... T he other day, three men appeared in front of the San Diego City Council to answer any questions that august body might have for them as they went through the final stages of being appointed to the city's pension board. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders had selected Herb Morgan, Richard Tartre and Edward Kitrosser to replace three people on the pension board. Voters decided in 2004 that since so many billions in taxpayer dollars were at stake with every decision made there, the board that oversees the San Diego City Employees' Retirement System should no longer be dominated by city employees. MORE>>> |
05/01/09 | VSD |
| General Motors by the Sea? Aanyone who thought that the DeLorean had dropped them off back in 2002 after reading about potential tinkering with the city's pension system would not have been far off. The practical effect of changing how the pension system calculates San Diego's annual pension obligation would be nearly identical to the city's infamous pension underfunding known as Manager's Proposal 2: To delay higher pension payments due to a recession in the hopes -- really, prayers -- that higher investment earnings down the road will make up the difference. MORE>>> |
04/30/09 | VSD |
| Controversial Pension Funding to Be Studied by Rani Gupta The Mayor's Office is looking to form a committee to study a pension funding provision that, if altered, could lower the city's annual payment into the system. The city's chief operating officer, Jay Goldstone, sent a memo to the City Council today saying an expert committee would study the issue of the provision known as the corridor, which I wrote about last week. MORE>>> |
04/28/09 | VSD |
| Pension Hawks Warn of 'MP-3' Iit's been a while since a San Diego mayor has been accused of tampering with the pension system. But Mayor Jerry Sanders' recent announcement that he is replacing three pension board members appointed before he took office has raised concerns that Sanders is angling to revise a relatively unknown aspect of the pension system. MORE>>> |
04/22/09 | VSD |
| 04/12/09 | SDUT | |
| Taxpayers and pensions (pro) - Critics ignoring employee benefits history
By Tony Ruiz III Robert Cronk and Jan Lord Everyone who works for a living counts on their employer to pay what was promised for the work done. And no employer's promise is more precious than a pension promise. MORE>>> |
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| City, county pensions alive and kicking - Both systems weathering crisis better than market David Wescoe, head of the San Diego city pension system, says he has a simple response when someone asks about his fund's investment performance. "Compared to what?” he asks. Investment losses are mounting for pension systems across the country, and the funds run by the city and county of San Diego are no different. MORE>>> |
04/05/09 | SDUT |
| City Files Suit Over DROP The City of San Diego has filed suit against the police union in a case meant to determine whether the Deferred Retirement Option Program is a vested pension benefit. MORE>>> |
04/02/09 | VSD |
| Pension Bonds Still on San Diego's Radar Screen San Diego city officials are still interested in pursuing pension obligation bonds at some point, despite the recent market downturn that has illustrated the argument of those who say borrowing to pay down the pension deficit is risky and unnecessary. In 2006, Mayor Jerry Sanders proposed borrowing $674 million to inject into the pension system. Those plans were stymied by the city's lack of a credit rating -- which was finally restored last year -- and, to a lesser degree, by former City Attorney Mike Aguirre's legal opinions. MORE>>> |
03/01/09 | VSD |
| DROP Return Cut in Half Pension board members voted 7-2 today to essentially halve the rate of return for employees who take part in the city's deferred retirement option program, known as DROP. Instead of the current annual 7.75 percent rate, those participating in the plan will receive a 3.54 percent annual rate of return on their pension payments, which are deposited in their DROP accounts while they take part in the program. MORE>>> |
02/20/09 | VSD |
| Pension Items to Be Docketed Council President Ben Hueso has agreed to docket the pension-related items proposed by Councilwoman Donna Frye, which I wrote about earlier today. Hueso's spokeswoman, Michelle Ganon, said they will be discussed Jan. 27, according to a memo sent to Frye today. MORE>>> |
01/08/09 | VSD |
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