“Less than 24 hours before it was to consider a controversial proposal to increase pension benefits by 25 percent, Metropolitan Water District once again took the item off its agenda, this time for good,” according to the North County Times.
It was the second time Los Angeles-based Metropolitan, Southern California’s biggest water wholesaler, has delayed consideration of the proposal. Its 37-member board of directors was originally scheduled to vote on it on Sept. 15.
This is huge! Consider this a victory for the Tax Revolt movement.
Now if only we could do something about the existing public employee pensions that are slowly choking all levels of our local and state government…
Orange Juice readers can get the latest headlines on the public employee pension crisis on a daily basis at http://PensionTsunami.com .
Too bad. I was hoping for a public vote. It’s sad how the whole thing has been dropped without a vote – worked out behind the scenes, conveniently, so nobody had to be embarrassed by a public position.
I, for one, really wanted to find out how Anaheim’s representative was going to vote, in public, with the union boys sitting there in the front row. The others, too.
Now that they can’t retire next week, how in the hell are we going to retain the key employees?
The reality is that even when increased pensions are “paid for” by increased monthly contributions by the employer and employees no one can guarantee they are fully financed. Reason is that these monies go into a pool that is invested and if those investments do not pay off, the employer – in this case the taxpayer – is on the hook to make the program whole. With wider undertanding of this reality it would seem the era of enhancing public sector pensions is over. Of course, individuals investing their own defined contribution monies face the same risk, but the taxpayers do not. The likely long term impact on society is that people are going to work longer, and have less comfortable retirements when retirement does come.