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Loosen your collars, anonymous screamers! The person who said the pension is sound is the actuary, not me. The financial soundness of the pension is not my theory or my math or my spin; it’s the conclusion of the very person that the mayor and the city attorney rely on for this very analysis. Nobody responding to the post had any dispute with the reasoning the actuary offered. By all means, if his math is wrong, point out where and how. But if the actuary is right, this is very good for our city.
How do we pay for the pension in the future? The same way we pay for it this year. The actuary’s point was that by paying the full bill from the retirement system every year, as we are now doing, we both fund the benefits and pay off the deficit. By all means, we should control the cost of benefits, as we are now doing through the consolidation of health care plans, and as we did through the new requirement for voter approval of future retirement benefit increases.
But the actuary said that, even with current benefits, the amount of the payment owed by the city in the next 20 years will be proportionately the same as it is now. That’s at least manageable, and that’s big, good news.