The city pension system’s top executive injected some self-effacing humor when describing his organization to a state commission on retirement benefits in the Bay Area on Thursday, the Contra Costa Times reports.
According to the Times:
David Wescoe, San Diego’s retirement system administrator, told commissioners about the eight city and union leaders in his city facing federal or local criminal charges — or both — for allegedly boosting their own pensions and doing other sneaky things.
Wescoe, who came on board after the scandals, opened with this remark: “I often like to say I’m from the underfunded and over-indicted San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System.”
Wescoe was one of a handful of witnesses who testified in front of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission last week. At the meeting, California pension officials announced that retirement funds across the state are running a combined $63 billion deficit, but that funding levels for public pension systems had increased by 11 percent since 1991.