Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Town pension funds

I got this at the Retirement Board meeting two weeks ago:This report shows that the town pension has about $60million dollars in assets (as of June 30, 2008).

I asked about the total liability, but it wasn't handy. Regardless, for the five years I've been on the Council I've been told consistently that the pension assets exceed the pension liabilities.

As for a breakdown of the various pension plans... I haven't gotten my hands fully around that yet.

Tim White

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How then could you approve any increase in the Town's Pension Funds WITHOUT knowing the total liability of the fund?

Anonymous said...

We need to be careful with looking at the pension funding as a way to decrease costs. A few bad years of market return can have a big impact on plan assets. At the same time, we need to see projected plan liabilities to sell the increase in funding to the public. the main focus should be to get away from new employees being in the Defined Benefit Plan.

Anonymous said...

The town should know and publish--as is done in private industry--a balance sheet on the pension fund--if ANY council member voted to approve without knowing the liabilities--they are NUTS

Anonymous said...

OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THE TOWN HAS HAD TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE DIFFERENT PLANS? TO JUST ASSUME THAT THE DB PLAN WILL SAVE MONEY, IF THE PLANS ARE SOLID, SEEMS LIKE A BIG JUMP. IF THE TOWN HAS ONLY CONTRIBUTED SAY100K OVER 10 YEARS TO A GIVEN PLAN, AND A DB WITH TOWN MATCH REQUIRING THE TOWN TO CONTRIBUTE SAY 5% OF A 2 MILLION DOLLAR SALARY GROUP, PER YEAR. THAT WOULD BE A GUARENTEED OUTPUT OF 100,000 PER YEAR.
THE DB PLAN SOUNDS GOOD, BUT IF THE PENSIONS ARE SOLVENT, WHY NOT JUST HAVE THE TOWN CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUNDS ANNUALLY TO KEEP THEM THAT WAY.
WE MAY NEED A NEW SCHOOL TOO, BUT PAYING FOR POTENTIAL CONSTRUCTION COSTS THINKING THEY MAY BE NEEDED DOESNT MAKE SENSE EITHER.