Modified again, this time enough to garner support from the teachers. Teachers, the state of Texas and school districts all would pay more to help support the Teacher Retirement System of Texas under a bill passed by the Texas Senate Wednesday. Under Senate Bill 1458, the $117 billion TRS fund would get a boost from [...]
Posts Tagged ‘pension fund’
Modified teacher retirement bill put forth
Sounds like progress, though we’ll have to see how it goes from here. Members of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas objected strongly last week to a legislative proposal that would have required about half of current employees to work until age 62 to receive full retirement benefits. They now have no minimum retirement age [...]
Senate examines pensions
This sort of thing always makes me nervous. Legislative proposals to shore up Texas’ two largest public pension funds could require teachers and state employees to work years longer than they must today to get full retirement benefits. For example, a teacher who started in the classroom at age 23 may now take full retirement [...]
The Chronicle is very disappointed in you, Houston delegation
Here they are throwing a hissy fit to express their deep sense of disappointment. Just shy of 6,000 bills were filed in the Texas Legislature prior to last week’s deadline. Nearly half of those came in the usual blizzard of filing activity 72 hours prior to the Friday, March 8, witching hour. Some of these [...]
Houston’s health care cost problem
This is a problem for which there’s no easy solution. Hoping to contain rising health care costs, Mayor Annise Parker recently hiked premiums and cut benefits for employees, a move union leaders said overburdens workers and some City Council members said does not adequately cut costs. Health benefits, long a budget-buster for governments, jumped from [...]
On city delegations and firefighter pensions
There are two points of interest in this Chron editorial about the Legislature and the desire of the city to get a bill passed that would give it some leverage over the firefighters in their fight over the pension fund. Sometimes we wonder if there really is such a thing as a “Houston delegation” representing [...]
City pension funds make their case
This deserves more visibility than it’s gotten. Representatives of Houston’s three employee pension boards told a Houston City Council committee Monday that the sky is not falling and pleaded with council members to be patient in examining the city’s pension obligations. The presentations from the firefighters’ pension, the municipal employees’ pension and the police pension [...]
Interview with Todd Clark and Chris Gonzales of the firefighters’ pension fund
I have written numerous times about the ongoing battle between Mayor Parker and the Houston Firefighter’s Relief and Retirement Fund, which is to say the firefighters’ pension fund. After I noted a legal victory by the city in its attempt to get more information from the fund, I was contacted by a representative of the [...]
It’s all about the pensions
I didn’t stay up to see the end of the Monday Night Football debacle. Whether you endured it or not, perhaps you’re wondering what exactly this particular labor dispute is about. To be blunt, it’s about the NFL attacking the referees’ retirement plan. The referees’ union and NFL team owners remain at odds on several [...]
Texas’ public pension funds are solvent through 2075
There was a hearing in the Lege this week about the state’s pension plans, and the good news is that they’re in pretty good shape. The better news is that the members of the Lege’s pension committee recognize that fact. State Rep. Rob Orr, R-Burleson, who is said to be in the running to be [...]
Here comes the pension fight
Not looking forward to it. A day of reckoning has arrived in Houston, the city’s financial stewards say, to choose between pensions and pothole repairs. Days after voters in two California cities curbed public employee retirement benefits and voters in Wisconsin rejected an effort to recall a governor who required state workers to pay more [...]
New frontiers in cost cutting
Apparently, you can cut costs by defaulting on your bills. Why didn’t I think of that? Councilwoman Helena Brown has submitted a budget amendment aimed at solving the city’s decade-old pension problem: Stop paying. Her amendment calls for defaulting on more than $200 million in contributions due to the city’s three public employee pension systems [...]
City sues firefighter pension board
We knew this was coming. The city of Houston sued the firefighters pension board in state District Court on Wednesday in an effort to pry open the retirement system’s books for a look at supporting data behind the $61 million annual bill it sends to City Hall. “We need access to this very basic information [...]
If you can’t specify it, it’s not wasteful
After reading this op-ed by Todd Clark, the chair of the Houston Firefighters’ Relief and Retirement Fund (that is, their pension fund), I have decided to adopt two rules for all future discussion of the city’s budget. Let me speak briefly about the city’s Long Range Financial Management Task Force. This advisory committee could have [...]
It’s always easier to talk in the abstract
I have three things to say about this. The city of Houston has been papering over multimillion-dollar budget deficits for nine years by borrowing money, tapping its rainy day fund, selling buildings and just plain putting off bills to the future, according to city finance officials. [...] This year, Mayor Annise Parker has pledged not [...]
A bit of perspective on pensions
Mayor Parker and current members of Council will receive pensions from the city some day. They also will some day vote on what steps the city should take to deal with the pension system. Is that a problem? “Whenever you’re an elected official, there’s not an easy way around it,” agreed Josh McGee, vice president [...]
Parker to sue pension boards for more information
It’s pensions all the time around here. Mayor Annise Parker said Thursday that her administration is gearing up to sue the city’s pension systems to open their books and preparing a “road show” of pension reforms she will present throughout the area with the idea of getting state legislation to achieve them. The city wants [...]
Two views of pensions
The Chron’s Sunday op-ed pages were filled with pension-related discussion. Here are the citizen members of the Long-Range Financial Management Task Force, fresh off of their report release, taking to the pages to lay out what the city wants from the Lege on pension issues. The Texas Legislature must change the current law that gives [...]
The Long-Range Financial Management Task Force report is out
A little light reading for your Sunday. The report generated criticism before the figurative ink was dry on it. Union leaders criticized the report before it was even delivered to the mayor, with Houston Organization of Public Employees President Melvin Hughes declaring the report an attack on employees. “It’s not about balancing the budget,” Hughes [...]
Another item for the city’s legislative wish list
Loren Steffy brings up a familiar issue that has added salience now as the city tries to deal with its long term finances. Across the city, prime office buildings are selling for far more than their tax values, leaving billions in potential tax revenue on the table at a time when city and county budgets [...]
Help me, Long-Range Financial Management Task Force! You’re our only hope!
Having some Jedi mind tricks available to deal with this probably wouldn’t hurt. About one out of every 11 dollars in this year’s city budget goes to cover pension costs. The $165 million the city plans to send to its three public employee pensions this fiscal year is the consummation of a decades-old contract with [...]
Thinking long term about the city’s finances
If you didn’t have to worry about practicality or implementation issues, what ideas would you have about improving the city’s long term financial health? That in a nutshell is the mission of the Long-Range Financial Management Task Force that was created last year when the budget was adopted, and they’re starting to generate those ideas. [...]
Double dippin’
How do you know when you’re on really shaky ground when trying to justify what appears to anyone with a lick of common sense to be a craven and shameful maneuver in one’s own naked self-interest? Gov. Rick Perry has sparked a wave of criticism, and some unanswered questions, after filing paperwork this week revealing [...]
On targeting public pension plans
I have three things to say about this. Texas could be gearing up for its own Wisconsin-style grudge match over public employee benefits. A group of high-powered Houston business leaders is starting a statewide campaign to overhaul retirement for future teachers, firefighters, police officers, judges and other state and local government workers. “I think the [...]
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s SuperCommittee!
Up, up, and away! A group of 16 elected officials, community leaders, union bosses and pension executives have until Jan. 31 to find ways to tackle the triple threat to the city’s future solvency — ballooning pension obligations, runaway health care costs and massive long-term debt. In Washington, a 12-member congressional committee must forge a [...]
You may say to yourself “Well, how did I get here?”
What’s missing from this story? The city of Houston’s budget crisis that has resulted in 747 employees getting pink slips last month and likely will close pools and community centers did not happen overnight. It has been brewing for the better part of a decade, the result of, among other things, spending more while taxing [...]
San Antonio’s budget situation
Just for comparison. “Our 2011 numbers still are not where they were in 2008,” [San Antonio] City Manager Sheryl Sculley told the council during a briefing session Wednesday. The projected shortfall in the general fund in the next budget has been reduced from $37 million to a range between $8.5 million and $20 million, depending [...]
The State of the City 2011
It’s getting a little better, but we’re still not close to being in good times. The city of Houston’s budget deficit for the coming fiscal year has been whittled to roughly $80 million from $130 million, Mayor Annise Parker said after her annual State of the City address on Friday. Parker, speaking at a Greater [...]
Mayor seeks pension fund cuts
Given the size of the budget shortfall for next year and the amount that the city pays into the various pension funds, Mayor Parker’s proposal to pay less should not be a surprise to anyone. City Attorney David Feldman and Finance Director Kelly Dowe already have asked firefighter pension executives to accept $14 million less [...]
The pension problem
I don’t know enough about the particulars of the city’s pension problems to be able to sort out the competing claims made in this story. I do know that the current system is not sustainable, and that the fight to make changes in it will be long and nasty. I know some folks would like [...]
From the “Be careful what you wish for” department
The state wants to reduce its workforce as part of the cost savings needed to balance the budget. But what it saves now it may pay for later. Ann Fuelberg, executive director of the Employees Retirement System of Texas, warned lawmakers on Monday that they must consider how their decisions to trim the state’s workforce [...]
No check for you!
Nice little bit of holiday cheer for Texas’ retired public employees this week. Retired public employees discovered yesterday that they would not receive additional $500 checks this year. According to Senator Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, they shouldn’t hold their breath for more benefits next cycle either. “I don’t think we’ll be able to,” he said. “The [...]
Perry meddles again
All of his shenanigans with the Texas Forensic Science Commission have kept Governor Perry busy lately, but not so busy that he can’t mess with other things, too. Gov. Rick Perry plans to reshuffle the board leadership of the state’s $88 billion teacher retirement system, an unexpected move that has reignited concerns among the members [...]