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CSPP
CSPP needs help: Public pension fund, taxpayers face ‘costly’ test
We have been deluged with recent articles on the abysmal less than 1 perceent (0.6%, to be exact) return on CalPERS investments. This note is a reminder that it also applies to the Marin County Employees Retirement Association, although they did slightly better.
It was certainly a pleasant surprise to see Dan Borenstein in the Marin Independent Journal today. As most of you know, Dan largely covers East Bay issues, but often writes on matters of interest to all Californians, such as this one.
Read his article here:
http://www.marinij.com/opinion/20160720/marin-voic...
I just wrote this comment below the online article:
This article pertains to CalPERS, but Marin's pension fund, MCERA (Marin County Employees Retirement Association), uses an assumption rate of 7.25% (recently down from 7.5% and even higher in past years), which is equally ridiculous. MCERA covers the employees in County government, San Rafael, Novato Fire and So. Marin Fire.
Pressure needs to be applied to both pension systems to stop this gaming of the system which allows for salary and benefit increases while piling up debt on taxpayer shoulders.
Dan Borenstein clearly defines how that happens: reducing the contribution required from employers (in the case of MCERA it is the four entities mentioned above), thus freeing up money to keep enhancing salaries and benefits. The shortfall is added to the debt, and that mountain of debt will be handed to our kids and grandkids.
You need to demand that your supervisors speak up in favor of reducing this wildly ridiculous assumption rate. You should also attend MCERA meetings and make the demand directly to them. They meet every other week. Their schedules and agendas can be found at www.mcera.org
CSPP core group members often attend MCERA meetings. We have attempted many times to convince them to lower the assumption rate. They use the same argument as that used by CalPERS, referring to periods when the fund actually achieved higher rates. This is nonsense.
If we are to stop this insanity, it will take more than ten CSPP core members to make it happen here in Marin. I urge you to commit to attend a future MCERA meeting with us. If you are willing to do this, please let me know. We can arrange to meet beforehand and review the issues and possible statements to the MCERA board. Please email me if you can commit to doing this.
I will be posting this on the CSPP Facebook page and hope you will leave comments there.