Jackson Jambalaya

Jon Breedlove of Fondren.

All of the meetings have been open to public. I don't understand the outrage, it would be imprudent to not study and insure something so important is solvent. The interests of the tax payer and the retiree need to be considered.

The elimination of " SLURP " would be a good start .

Most people don't realize that our sly representatives in the Mississippi House and Senate
not only receive the standard PERS benefits - (originally created for the rank and file),
but they also receive additional retirement benefit, because they think they are so damn important.

This Legislative raise is titled as the: Supplemental Legislative Retirement Plan ( SLRP) .

Commonly known as " SLURP " .

In a nutshell, our Reps and Senators, decided that as they are part time ELECTED " Officials " ,
they should be entitled to not only the normal PERS benefits that "Joe the MDOT flag guy will
one day receive "... but an extra retirement cash benefit because they are " Legish-lay-tors" .

Ask any Rep or Senator about doing away with SLURP, and I guarantee Damn "T" that you will see
the best impromptu imitation of a stuttering Porky Pig this side of of a 1940's Looney Tune feature.

I'm sorry, but the fix is in on the governor's little "study" commission idea. It's part of a coordinated attack on the retirement system. I'm not saying that because I think it. I'm saying it because I know it.

And Kingfish, 64% funded is if they had to pay out everything they owed TODAY for all the people they owe it to. Mark to market. It's not the best way to measure a retirement system where assets are dribbled out over years and years.

PERS is just fine, even with the little perks some people have snuck into the system. Get rid of those perks and it'll be even stronger.

Okay Borezombie. If it is a coordinated attack and you know all about it tell us what are the objectives? What is the system they want to be left standing?

Wht does commission member Hob Bryant know about funds and the retirement system? He does pay his own bills.

From that website:

"A $10,000 investment with a 'defined contributions' plan that grows over 30 years would be worth $24,504 less under than with the current defined benefits plan."

That one statement sums up exactly why the PERS commission was put into place. The contributions going into the plan are not sufficient to pay the future benefits that will come out of the plan.

If PERS were actuarily sound then the future value of benefits would be the same regardless if it was defined benefit or defined contribution. Where do they think the additional $24,504 is going to come from? Throw in the fact that PERS provides disability benefits too and you can really see why PERS is starting to look just like Social Security. Nowhere near enough is being contributed to fund the promised benefits.

PERS got derailed back in the late 1990's when they increased the retirement benefit formula by about 10% and made it retroactive to all prior service. They had a decade of great returns, got the funded balance close to 100%, and thought the good times would never end. They assumed a long-term 8% rate of return and called it conservative because they had gotten close to 14% between 1990 and 1999. They legislated mandatory 3% COLA's regardless of the actual inflation rate.

Of course we all know what happened to returns over the 2000 - 2011 period. Now it is time for PERS to face reality and recognize they screwed themselves. Rather than set the extra funds aside for a rainy day, they felt the money burning a hole in their pocket and gave it all away. Typical government.

I think most readers of this site know what an unfunded liability is and if you had read my earlier post linked above, you would have seen that I posted the actual assets as well as the rates of return. The thirty year return is still decent even after 2008-09.

8:02: good comment.

The problems with Social Security and pension funds is not that they don't work, but that they worked too well. Elected officials couldn't stand that much money sitting around unused and found ways to avail themselves of those funds.

For Social Security, it was the creation of SSI and Medicaid which simply shifted the costs of Aid to the Aged and Disabled in what was then called Welfare to Social Security. Both Republicans and Democrats could then brag that they had cut the costs of welfare . Those who objected were told by all politicians that there was SO much money in the Social Security Fund that it could never be all spent!

When it was money for those who put it in, with payouts based on amounts contributed, such plans work quite well. And, unlike 401Ks, the fund investments weren't designed to make money for the fund managers but rather for the investors.

The problems with Social Security and pension funds is not that they don't work, but that they worked too well.

Part of it. But another major problem is that the actuarial life expectancy forecasts have for decades been far too low.

I don't have a problem with PERS, per se, but members of the system be damned if they expect that the ship is going to get righted on the backs of non-PERS taxpayers.

Memo to PERS participants:

EVERYONE TAKES A HAIRCUT. YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE.

The problem is the system assumes an 8 percent return going forward to calculate unfunded liability. Private market pension funds assume just over 5 percent.

As for motive, the local fund managers want that money. You turn PERS into a defined contribution plan instead of a defined benefit plan, and all the local fund managers get new customers. They want PERS killed so they can get that money, period. It's not for the good of the retirement system. And Kingfish, be ready to do a whole bunch of new stories on crooks taking off with folks' retirement savings if all that money is dumped on employees to figure out how to invest it.

And as for that 8 percent assumed return, PERS has STILL beat that averaged over the life of the fund, even with the recessions.

There's nothing wrong with PERS that a few tweaks won't fix. But with all of the lobbyists trying to kill PERS and meddling of all of the envious types who want to treat public servants like indentured servants, I don't trust those tweaks to happen without real damage being done to the system.

@750........PERS has only beat the 8 percent over a long period as all pension funds have. The problem is no one expects that from market going forward. You are also showing you have no idea what you are talking about. At no point has there been a discussion of privatization that I have heard of.

Really? No one has mentioned privatization? Pay closer attention. I've heard it plenty. Some have backed off of privatization when they realized how politically dangerous it is, but that mayor from South Mississippi on the "study" commission, he's spoken about it plenty. On radio and television. I'll have to check his letter to the Clarion Ledger and see if he mentioned it in there, but I wouldn't be surprised.

10:39 ~ You don't seem to take into account that taxpayers include PERS active employees as well as retirees. Agencies that are state funded kick in an amount for each PIN number. Those amounts are funded from various tax sources, paid by Mississippians, INCLUDING PERS participants who pay every type of tax you pay, plus funding a considerable portion of their own retirement 'kick in'.

You would like for it to appear that the state retirees are frogs sitting on a log feasting on the insects you as a taxpayer float their way.

I suggested a week or so ago that Haley had a plan (doesn't he always?) up his sleeve by waiting until the last four months of his 96 month term of office. He's depended on state employee support for two terms but sees their support now as meaningless. Thus he can dick(er) around with the system for his own purposes, whatever those are. But you can bet your senile aunt's snuff can he's up to no good.

Or good.

When a 401K or similar self-funded vehicle in the private sector loses value it simply loses value. It goes down and is worth less. The owner holds the bag and hopes for the best going forward until whatever money remaining is needed for retirement.

When PERS loses value people like Shadowfax want taxpayers to make account owners whole by covering their losses using increased tax contributions.

Whether or not PERS participants are also taxpayers has absolutely nothing to do with it. The bottom line is that PERS account owners want to be insulated from any and all losses using whatever it incrementally takes from the state treasury. They want a bailout, they want a guarantee that 100% of their retirement savings will be completely protected from economic bad times. PERS participants are all for shared sacrifice as long as they don't have to do any of the sharing.

It is called a defined benefit plan folks. It is more/less a pension. NOT a 401K.

With that said, it will be a problem if it is not changed. New participants will lose out on guaranteed retirement. Older participants will be fazed out.

Contributions for current payees will be modified to transition them to a self-funded retirement program that the state is not on the hook for with guaranteed returns.

It started happening in Corporate America years ago. Guberment is just playing catch up. It is about time.

It is called a defined benefit plan folks. It is more/less a pension. NOT a 401K.

No shit?

As a state employee I cant afford to pay any more in. We are already paying 2-3 times what people pay in the private sector.

If it was mismanaged then who went to jail over that?

Another problem is the PERS board of trustees is elected from the participants. Most private endowments bring in outside volunteers who are experts in finance.

@anon 4:17. You're wrong. I don't care one way or the other about a retiree being 'made whole' as you suggest. Not my problem. I simply pointed out to you that those people are also taxpayers and their taxes pay the same amount into the formula as your taxes pay, both of which are infinitesimal and non-identifiable.


You seem to be fairly astute yet you post as if you don't know what a defined benefit plan is or either you've just realized most state retirement systems operate this way.

State employees, I'm told, also have an option to put a portion of their pay into a 'deferred compensation' program that resembles a 401(k) in some ways. Problem with that is, with the salary and hourly wage structure of these agencies, they can't afford that option.

Sorry. A defined benefit plan does not guarantee defined benefits no matter how loud and frequently the PERS spinners say otherwise. Nothing makes the benefits in the plan inviolate.