Humboldt County Pension Obligations
The Humboldt Consequential looks at our county pension obligations today and finds the average county resident owes $4.702 towards those pensions. There's no question that most of the recently passed tax increases were in large part due to budget shortages created by those pension obligations. The down side is most county employees, and particularly their unions, will tell us this shouldn't be, or isn't, a problem, despite having to pay more and more for pensions rather than for the government services so many expect.
I must have missed the Times- Standard's article by Will Houston on this issue. Good to see them covering a hot button issue in state and local politics that so many want us to ignore.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:32 AM
13 comments
13 Comments:
What a stupid article in construct, but funny in attempt......as if HOJ owes one penny to the pension fund.
THC trying to make it appear as if "we the outsider people" owe them ......or the unborn for heavens sake.
Nope, only those insiders who made the promises with a union gun to their temple owe the money......
.....as if gubbamint is going to send every outsider a bill for an equal amount....
You'll be paying for it through one tax increase or another. No way around that, unless you can figure a way to pay no taxes at all.
Fred, it is one thing to claim that there is all these new taxes.....and that pensions are going to be funded by these new taxes (legally they can't)
Versus
Claiming that each county resident owes over 4k.....ain't ever gonna be a bill given to you for over 4K.
In fact, taxes won't proportionately ensure each resident pays exactly the same amount of over 4K.
Just not a realistic way to sow a seed for a story....just plane stupid to review in that context.
Direct injection of tax dollars into the pension fund outside of the allowed process to do so now is illegal unless a ballot initiative exclusively prioritizes by vote a separate direct injection tax.
None of the new taxes fund the pension 1 penny.....and if one penny does, it is illegal.
Illegal taxation is what the pension issue may raise awareness too however.....
The Shasta Lantern & the State of Jefferson have been reporting on this for years. It's the number one worry question they receive from govt workers. Mark Baird explains it, over at the youtube.
Back in 2013 every American citizen owed $1 mil to cover expenses. Obama has since raised the borrowed limit to unlimited billions twice. (The president has no say in budgets, mind you, (besides veto's) but Congress has skirted their responsibilities & have let him).
Calif itself in state taxes, wages, pensions, is on top of this. That 4thou is a drop in the bucket now.
HOJ wrote, ".and that pensions are going to be funded by these new taxes (legally they can't)"
They don't have to fund pensions directly. The General Funds, the same funds that pay for most everything else, pays for pension shortfalls. To make up the resulting shortages in the General Fund, the new taxes come into play, even if they're supposedly for some specific other purpose.
" is illegal unless a ballot initiative exclusively prioritizes by vote a separate direct injection tax."
But who is to say if the funds are spent improperly? If the county pays an additional million into the pension fund, then takes a million dollars from a recent tax increase and adds it to the General Fund to cover the resulting shortage, who would pick up on it (and how else could they deal with the pension fund shortage?).
I haven't completely read this article but I know Calpirg has not been all that efficient in investing the funds that are supposed to generate the retirement incomes people had been promised.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-16/pension-battle-pushes-precedent-in-distressed-california-town
And here is the LA Times article on what pensions will cost those in LA:
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-squeeze/
But that is the general fund, part of the "now process" already.....not these taxes that THC is misapplying which are "specific" and not "pension subsidizing"......and if so, again illegal.
The CAO and seperate finance department......hopefully watchdogs too.
Exactly,
The liberal politicians in California whine about Wall Street (Pelosi screams bloody murder), but then invest CalPERS into the Stock Market for less than 1% annual return on Investment.....that is terrible ROI.....makes ya wonder who is decision making.
Off topic, kinda....
Pensions go up when you increase the police state with funds to put more cops on the street.
Then, Downey "The fabric Soft Sheriff" has to get his PSO "Brittany Powell" (relative of Powell Concrete Pumping Services" to schmooze her relative Ana Powell to conspire to collude to say words "trumping up the Downey fraud".
More cops on the heat makes little difference since cops are predominately "mop up crews".
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