> Vicky Heller comments: > > Pensions are a ticking time bomb in the public and private sectors. > > Example: General Motors has 175,000 current employees, and 450,000 former > employees collecting pensions. One doesn't need much math to see that > this ratio can't continue forever. Right now, GM owes its pension fund > $12.7 billion. > > How many former Minneapolis employees are collecting, or waiting to > collect, pension benefits? A few months ago, a listmember posted that the > City currently has 6,230 full time employees (before any cuts.) I would > like to know how many people are either collecting now, or waiting in the > wings to collect City pensions. > > Government entities must be required to disclose the WHOLE truth about > their pension obligations - just like publicly traded companies.
The realities of the Minneapolis pension system is that this issue was addressed around 1979. MERF, the City's pension fund before the pension reforms, has a plan to become fully funded which it has been working towards for some decades. This fund was also closed to new members. All employees who were given pension benefits after this have been in the state-wide PERA system and money has been set aside on an on-going basis for the pension liability for those persons. If Ms. Heller or anyone else wants to see the status of the pension liabilities and whether they are covered, they can go to the PERA website http://www.mnpera.org/ and see for themselves the "WHOLE truth". > Michael Hohmann asks: > > ".....when will our public pensions be converted from defined benefit to > defined contribution?" As to Mr. Hohmann's question about public pensions changing from defined benefits to defined contributions, that would be an issue to be negotiated between the city and its unions. Carol Becker Longfellow TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
