Jackson Jambalaya

You wanna post it RIGHT SIDE UP???

Yeah, it's a little hard to read, but I did read question 3. Interesting.

So, they want to know if they would support increasing taxes on businesses to pay for shortfall in the Government Employee Retirement fund?

Really?

I think the reference to Employer refers to the State of MS portion paid into the Retirement fund on behalf of State Employees

In other words, "Would you vote to continue pouring more water into a leaking bucket, in order to give it the appearance that it's full and not leaking?"

Brilliant

Wisconcin style intimidation of elected officials and taxpayers. Get ready.

Wisconcin style intimidation of elected officials and taxpayers.

I.e., you bail us out and pay for our bad investments and fully fund our retirement or else.

Get ready.

1:02, that's exactly what it means. The State of Mississippi. That is you and me, those that are not state employees but try to work for a living. The question of these candidates is "would you support spending more tax dollars to maintain the current or future level of benefits". This is a defined benefit plan - something that nowdays only government employees see. You are guaranteed a certain dollar amount upon retirement, no matter what the market has done.

In order to support such a plan, the employee and the employer (State) pay into the plan. Our state plan is broke because the plan gives away too much for what it takes in. Finally, after decades, the legislature increased the employee contribution. But also increased the employer (you and me) contribution.

Funny thing is, it is state retirees that are on the board and get to determine how much the retirement should be. What a deal!!

The problem with a defined benefit plan like PERS is that the investment performance is cyclical but the board members have short term memories.

Back in the stock market heyday of the '90s when PERS was doing well the board gave all existing and future retirees a minimum of a 6% increase in their benefits and it could have been up to 15% if they had 40 years of experience. This was on top of the normal COLA. Rather than keep the funds for a rainy day, they gave it all away.

After the bubble burst and stocks were doing poorly PERS kept up the charade and said they were in sound financial condition even though they were actually deteriorating from well funded to adequately funded.

Now we have the recession and the full impact of the generous PERS increase of the late 1990's is finally catching up with them. Add into that a lot more employees padding their highest four years pay and you've got the perfect storm for PERS to go bankrupt without additional funding.

PERS needs a makeover from the ground up. They should take into account at least 10 years of pay in computing benefits. Also, the benefit rates should be adjusted for the actuarial computations, not the contribution rates.

Too bad that just like Social Security, once the politicians start giving out more benefits than revenues it is almost impossible to go back and higher taxes are the only answer.

As a former benificary of PERS, I can tell you the board is a bunch of legal con artist. Case in point, if I take a private job and roll my retirement to an IRA or Roth(after paying taxes) work 10 years in the private sector before deciding to take another job as a public employee, it is nearly impossible to do anything but start over with my State Retirement. Here is why. When I roll the money, I only get what I cantributed plus any increase through gaines. I can not get the money contribued by my employer. Not perfect but somewhat reasonable if you give them a large portion of grace. So, now your thinking that the City of Ridgeland or whoever the entity that I work for gets their money back, right? Not. The tax payers of that community just lost several thousands dollars that PERS keeps. So, it is not their money but neither the individual nor the entity gets this money back. Okay, again stay with me and let's give them the benitfit of the doubt, Sigh!

Ten years pass. I decide to go back. I have pay back the money I took out plus interest. Fair enough, I just roll it back from the Roth account to PERS, right? Wrong!! I have to pay back what I took plus interest, then pay back what they kept plus interest. So they keep the money make interest and get paid again with additional interest. The average working stiff can't do that, so you start over!

Most government jobs pay very badly. A defined benefit retirement plan is really the only retirement plan that makes sense for those type employees/jobs, and is sometimes the only way to keep people in those jobs. I'm not talking executive level government employees, but folks who really work hard in some of the most important/dangerous/rancid jobs in the world. They need that defined benefit plan, period.

The so-called PERS problem is two-fold: one, some of the benefit structure is too generous (no minimum age to retire, double-dipping, and some other tweeks that add up to big money), and second, fake hype by some folks in order to get at the retirement fund cash (backed by the local bank lobbists who want that money to be invested by their depositors through their local bank investment houses, rather than by PERS in far off investment houses). One is an actual problem, the other is a fake problem.

When the stock market goes down, the PERS unfunded liability goes up. When the stock market goes up, the unfunded liability goes down. Over the life of the program they're still ahead of their projections, even with the Great Recession of 2008. I don't see this PERS problem as the big emergency everyone seems to think it is -- unless the stock market stays down for ten years or so.

Not the alarmist, freakout, sky-is-falling viewpoint, I know, but that's the way it is....

Who should pay if they have to increase contributions? Let the market-place decide. If you start loosing employees because they're having to pay too much in PERS contributions and haven't had a raise in years, and that hurts state services, let the state employers pay. If employee increases have a negligible effect on employment and state services, make the employees pay. Or does that make too much sense?

Just a few things to remember about PERS. It's not just state employees. Anytime someone mentions PERS, people immediately think of the moron they spoke to on the phone the last time they had to call "XYZ" agency. Yes, that moron is part of PERS. But so are school teachers, community college staff, county employees, municipal employees, firefighters, police officers, etc. None of the people in those jobs take them to get rich, but many ARE willing to stay in Mississippi and do that work here because of the retirement. Which they ALSO won't get rich off of.

Whether we like it or not, Americans (and Mississippians) have gotten very accustomed to the services provided by public employees. As much as we complain about our taxes (and I'm right there with you) we also will go nuts on the city when our trash doesn't get picked up, or will freak out when we feel the teacher our kid has isn't qualified, or shake our heads in disbelief when yet another child is lost in the foster care system and dies at the hands of a check casher. We get what we pay for, and typically the FEW good public employees we have doing the MOST work are willing to stick it out because of the retirement.

If PERS gets pillaged, OK. But there better be a plan to start paying public employees better salaries -- if we don't, then the only guy who will be willing to take the $28,000/year job that requires a Master's Degree will be the guy who bought his off the internet. The skilled version of that guy will move to another state.

Ask just about any personnel director for any public entity in Mississippi why the GOOD staff leave, and money will be the top reason. Then ask them where they go -- they aren't taking private sector jobs in Mississippi, they are leaving the state altogether.

The "brain drain" problem in Mississippi that people have talked about FOR YEARS impacts all sectors of employment, including the public sector. The difference is that when someone sharp tries to stay in Mississippi for public service, they get repeatedly told they are overpaid, they are lazy, they don't deserve their retirement, and the state would be better off without them. We'll see how that works out in the long run.

Boarzombie, and 1:17 - your comments are based on the oftenquoted theorm that public employees are underpaid compared to the private sector. Several different studies have been conducted on this issue in Mississippi during the past three/four years and disproved this myth. Public employee pay at the state level, and in many (although not all) of the major communities in this state are paid on average 30% higher than comperable private sector jobs.

You are correct that PERS has sustained itself partly on this myth, but it is time to give it up and realize that public employees are frankly well paid compared to the private sector equal.

1:17, the main issue with compensating employees with proportionately high retirement benefits is that it forces major decisions about those benefits way into the future even though the promises are being made now.

PERS is in the same situation that Social Security is. The recession has caused a deadly combination of government layoffs and those laid-off employees drawing their PERS benefits along with a severe decrease in the investment income on the PERS assets.

Governments need to be on a pay-as-you-go method of compensation. Personally I think 11% employer (taxpayer funded) contributions to any retirement system is excessive. Cut the employer match to 5%, give the savings to the employees in the form of more pay, and switch to a defined contribution plan.

The reason employees argue so strongly for a defined benefit plan is they know they can't get the same retirement income with a defined contribution plan. Defined benefit plans typically pay out more than what was paid in and use the contributions from a growing number of new members to make up the shortfall. This is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme and what results in the "unfunded liability". Too bad it is a legal Ponzi scheme and the only way to fix things when the unrealistic growth assumptions don't materialize is for the taxpayers to be called on to bail the pension fund out.

The government doesn't need to pay employees in promises that it may not be able to fulfill.

This year's PERS report is going to be very interesting. You've got less members paying in, more beneficiaries getting benefits, and a stagnant economy. The only savng grace may be that the stock market has recovered 18% since this time last year.

8:09's assertion that PERS "is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme" is wrong. Actually, it's more like misinformation -- some out of context truths wrapped around some trendy labels to create falsehoods.

What part of "leveling" do you not understand?

A Ponzi scheme makes no money, it just pays out what it takes in and banks on a bigger take in than pay out. PERS invests in multiple markets over many, many years and beats its projections over that time (even through the ups and downs of those markets). Go look up the true definition of "Ponzi scheme" then come back and play.

Oh, and 6:36, you're so wrong it makes me snort.

Here's an easy one: toss your "studies" and do one of your own. Call up and compare the salaries of state nurses, doctors, lawyers, and accountants to the private sector. Then work your way down from professionals to other type jobs (not that you'll find private police or firemen). You might find a couple that are out of whack, but you'll find most public employees make less than the private sector. I can pull a study out of my mudhole too that'd blow yours away, but dueling studies are stupid. Do one of your own if you're really interested.

It ain't a myth -- ask any medical headhunter you know.

Anon 6:36, what is this study? Where can I find it? I'd very much like to see it, please provide a link or a source.