Here's something you might be interested in.
The city attorney's office released a draft version today (Dec. 14) outlining the full burden of the pension deficits facing San Diego taxpayers. The study shows that 417 current retirees have present value pension benefits of a million dollars or more. This has been revised upward from 314, the figure I used in a Dec. 11 post. One retiree has the equivalent of a lump sum payment of $2.35 million. Another has $2.15 million and a third $2 million. By contrast, many retirees have life benefits between $165,000 and $251,000. The draft version says that in total, the present value of future benefits has jumped from $3.7 billion in 2000 to $6.5 billion last year -- an increase of more than 75 percent. The study points out that the DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Plan) was supposed to be cost-neutral, but is far from that. In this plan, an employee declares he or she will retire in five years, then continues to receive their normal salary and, separately, 90 percent of their salary plunked in a fund that grows at 8 percent. DROP accounts for $200 million of the pension system's $1 billion-plus underfunding.
The city attorney's office released a draft version today (Dec. 14) outlining the full burden of the pension deficits facing San Diego taxpayers. The study shows that 417 current retirees have present value pension benefits of a million dollars or more. This has been revised upward from 314, the figure I used in a Dec. 11 post. One retiree has the equivalent of a lump sum payment of $2.35 million. Another has $2.15 million and a third $2 million. By contrast, many retirees have life benefits between $165,000 and $251,000. The draft version says that in total, the present value of future benefits has jumped from $3.7 billion in 2000 to $6.5 billion last year -- an increase of more than 75 percent. The study points out that the DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Plan) was supposed to be cost-neutral, but is far from that. In this plan, an employee declares he or she will retire in five years, then continues to receive their normal salary and, separately, 90 percent of their salary plunked in a fund that grows at 8 percent. DROP accounts for $200 million of the pension system's $1 billion-plus underfunding.