Jackson Jambalaya

No show jobs followed by lifetime welfare with honor. Win!

Most of these governments are flush with cash and are talking about tax cuts. The state is bragging about giant surpluses and cutting taxes or sending rebate checks.

"To say local officials were blindsided is an understatement."

I don't see how that's possible since anyone who ever looked at PERS in the last generation or two could see it coming.

Haircuts are inevitable because the Ponzi is not sustainable.

This Ponzi was created and has been perpetuated by the Legislature. But they will keep their heads in buried in the sand while dealing with important issues like banning tik tok on government devices.

Time for local governments to flex their muscles during an election year. Enough is enough. There are a few legislators who will listen, with some of those sitting in positions of power and advantage. It's haircut time ... starting with SLRP.

Yep. Let’s screw the biggest voting block in the state during an election year. Genius comment.

All that I honestly care about is delighting in the suffering of state employees!
I am confident Kingfish agrees!

Haircuts for everyone!

The drawbacks if a defined benefits package. Granted you don't have the government government "guarantee" of defined contributions model but you wouldn't have the surprises.

It’s a complete failure of state leadership. Put the head in the sand. Brag about how great a fiscal conservative you are but let this continue.

How about this - maybe pay folks a decent wage and reduce the retirement contribution percentage and the ridiculously low 25 years to retirement? Get the wage and retirement contribution ratio more in line with - oh maybe private business!

It's moved beyond funny to hilarious...the number of posting geniuses who actually know zero about the system, its history, its financing, what the so-called 13th check is NOT, whose taxes have never been increased and how the money is or is not invested or paid out.

But, hey, on any blog, all you need is a keyboard and a smidgen of ignorance, and you get to see your ignorance posted here.

4:24pm
Any opposition to non-merit pay for the public sector, including non-merit benefits, is welcome. We all know how eager the democrat leftists in MS are to further tax real estate and these victims all know their property taxes sting, hence are plenty qualified to oppose the bloated, pigressive PERS gluttony.

4:24pm: Threw the tax payers in the wood chipper dintcha. Greedy public sector won't 'go-far' here, dontcha know, so go ta Fargo, ya hoser.

KF, what is the average annual PERS benefit paid out currently? People act like it’s six figures. I’d guess it’s closer to $20k.

Remember, when the state cuts taxes again, they are really just passing the tax burden along to cities, counties and schools. That includes PERS. That includes bridges.

I reported the Chairman said last week it was $28,000 per year.

December 26, 2022 at 4:24 PM, I'll have you know I have more than a smidgen of ignorance, unlike my hypocrisy, my ignorance knows no bounds. Don't be throwing shade at me.

Thank you KF.

The obsession with PERS continues.

Merit pay works pretty well in a system where the metric is counting widgets produced, rocks piled up, valves assembled, or pages typed. But, pay here is not the issue.

If investments are poorly chosen, don't you reckon The Board would discover that? So, the employees are at fault?

The legislature monkeyed around and allowed 25-year retirement instead of 30, forty years ago.

The legislature effectively doubled its own retirement pay through trickery and attempted to fine-tune its own retirement benefits some years back, but it failed when the light of day hit the secret plan.

The legislature allowed retirees to cash in untaken leave and count 205 days toward years of service.

The legislature allowed, toward retirement, the use of prior service years in another state.

The legislature allows a retiree to choose to forgo his annual increase, paid monthly, and take it at the end of the year in what folks think is a magic 13th check.

The legislature allowed retirees to take a partial lump-sum withdrawal at time of retirement.

The legislature allowed a retiree to opt to ensure a named dependent for the rest of his or her life if the retiree dies.

the legislature allows a governor to declare agencies devoid of protection, resulting in agency heads firing employees (who were contributing to the system) and replacing them with contract workers who do not contribute to the system.

The legislature allowed the practice of using retirees as contract workers, thereby lessening employee contributions to the system and ensuring a practice of favoritism.

The legislature determines the legal composition of the Retirement System Board of Directors.

What's the point of lambasting those who are subject to and working in agencies, municipalities and other venues and multiple occupations and work settings covered by the PERS retirement system all across the state?

Wait, I forgot all those thousands of people are just no-show slugs wearing police uniforms, teaching children, running health departments, monitoring and assigning state and federal benefit programs, writing county and municipal planning and zoning policies, ensuring compliance with multiple federal and state programs, digging ditches, auditing taxes, arresting those stealing state/county/municipal money, working accidents all night in the rain, inspecting bridges, ensuring building safety, issuing licenses, laying asphalt, designing accounting systems, protecting wildlife, arresting game-poachers, saving drowning boaters, zipping dead people in body-bags, performing autopsies, policing roadways, treating patients, running college campuses, reviewing and grading graduate level theses, driving tractors along the interstates, studying wildlife habitats, designing roadways, running prisons, studying and improving crop life and productivity, determining flood zones, designing and implementing computer systems, cleaning commodes and shoveling shit.

But all of those fuckers need a haircut and ought to get real jobs, then we could farm-out all of those jobs to the private sector at five times the cost. Now there's a plan even Kingfish could support.

So the state contacts with employees on a compensation package, both current and delayed. Then many want the state not to pay the full delayed compensation after the employee has worked for 30 years. Too late for the employee. Talk about a screw job. These are mostly teachers, police officers, firemen, public works employees etc etc. yes, a few fat cats, but they are a small minority. The state pay rates are small, the difference is made up with the retirement plan. Now some of you want the state to default on its contracted obligation. What if your employer took back their matching 402-k contribution and the related growth amount at the time you planned to retire. Same thing.

You do get, right, that the politicos that feign outrage at the news of this increase are the future beneficiaries of the plan?

6:38 -- you did a decent job (although through the tinted lenses of your eyeshades) of pointing out the legislature's actions that put PERS in the shape it is in, including a refusal to change the makeup of the board to include people knowledgeable in the area of retirement systems and not individuals who benefit from the system.

But more importantly, when you slide by the 13th check (which is the annual increase paid in a lump sum rather than spread out as you say) - you ignored the most idiotic and devastating action the legislature did to PERS, and that was establishing the annual increase - which is supposed to represent a "Cost of Living" - at a minimum of 3% and Compounding that increase annually.

The COLA thus established is now the richest of any public pension fund in the country, and when put on top of the other 'benefits' that have been thrown in along with the bastardization of the "high four" concept, allows many retirees to receive a higher 13th check than the total amount they ever made in a one year period of work.

Its time that the legislature deal with cleaning up this mess - as was recommended by Governor Barbour over a decade ago and ignored by the legislative leadership - or maybe better said, by those individuals that occupied positions of leadership of the legislature.

Working taxpayers gonna get screwed again. Becoming a common theme these days, work hard and pay your taxes so others can live for free and enjoy their lives!

@ "The legislature monkeyed around and allowed 25-year retirement instead of 30, forty years ago."

It went back to 30 years in 2011, for folks hired after that date.

The state should end PERS and switch all new employees to a 401k.

"It went back to 30 years in 2011, for folks hired after that date."

The point made was that allowing 25-year, full retirement, for many years (before changing it back to 30 for new hires), further crippled the system via payouts.

As an aside, full military retirement comes at TWENTY years, but nobody bitches about that since that funding comes from the federal money tree. Every soul being military retired goes on to another career while drawing military retirement (and often additional benefits) for another 45-50 years.

While you recommend trimming hair and shaving beards of the 'little people', discontinue SLRP, require MHP to work 30 and remove top executives from the system altogether (does the previous Supt of Education come to mind?).

Take a look at the retirement of George Dale, Cecil 'the frown' Brown. Willie Simmons, as soon as he manages to get high-four as commissioner, will retire with 60 years in the system. Carey Wright (salaried at over 300K) left town as soon as she was vested at 8 and will draw a tremendous retirement for the rest of her life in a job that should not even be in the PERS system. And Phil Bryant? County Supervisors, mayors, agency heads, every soul at UMMC, college chancellors, Salter writing articles on company time, medical doctors at Whitfield......Lord.

@5:14 & @5:22pm - that's including the cola also.

PERS retiree here. I showed up every day as required, worked hard, contributed to the advancement of my community in real ways, and was repeatedly recognized for work well done. Most of my contemporaries and colleagues did the same. PERS will need a solution, but the harsh and undeserved bashing of public employees who does not advance this purpose.

Certain politically elected positions should not be allowed into the PERs system. Most of them are part time positions that bounce around the system until they get their vested years, then if they are a good boy, get promoted or elected to a higher statewide position to get their high 4 and retire. Often times they are working another job while working their elected positions.

@cha ching: 8 years of vesting ain't gonna get Carey Wright much of a retirement check, bubba.

"The state should end PERS and switch all new employees to a 401k" Dec 27 @ 12:34 a.m.

That would be an interesting maneuver since state or local governments or political subdivisions and agencies are not eligible to maintain 401(k) plans. The exception being those that might have had such a plan prior to 1986.

4:14, that’s why haircuts are not in the near future. Those making decisions have too much at stake.

When you tell a man you will pay him x for two weeks work, you don’t tell him two weeks later that you can’t pay him what you promised. That’s what banana republics do. Our entire financial system is based on people paying what they owe. When that breaks (ala 2008-09) much turbulence can be expected.

We can’t afford to pay retirees but we can afford to terminate income taxes and send out rebate checks. Got it.

"Working taxpayers gonna get screwed again. Becoming a common theme these days, work hard and pay your taxes so others can live for free and enjoy their lives!"

Not sure what that even means. Somebody has a burr under his saddle since he thinks he understands something he heard or read. But doesn't.

Pro Tip: Every PERS retiree was, for 25-50 years a working taxpayer and many remain so after retirement. No working person 'lives free' prior to or during retirement.

Try not to imagine ladumbo receiving a state retirement benefit.

"...and when put on top of the other 'benefits' that have been thrown in..."

What are these 'other benefits', 8:19?


7:35 makes (or attempts to make) a really good point. Sadly it falls on deaf ears.

I've seen plenty of hard-working state employees. No different than private sector. Go into a Chick Fil A and you see ___holes and elbows. Walk into a Burger King and well, you know what you see. Sloth galore.

It's always been about the retirement when you go to work for the state. underpaid while there, don't have to work very hard (but you have to deal with back biting, underhanded office politics and quotas of who and what gets promoted to post turtle positions), but the retirement after 30 years HOOO BOY. that 13th check is outrageous after a few years. Some are making more in retirement than they ever did working. How many state employees actually stay past quitting time to get something done, I don't know a single state employee that wasn't making a bee line to the door at quitting time. I deal with them and the door doesn't hit them where the good lord split them at quitting time. State office buildings become ghost towns after 5 and the only people you see moving is the cleaning crew. The only thing I want from my government is less of it. There is an old saying that is a true today as it was yesterday "Close enough for Government work"

Stop putting the contribution rate increase all on employer (taxpayer). Employee rate (currently 9%) hasn’t risen in years.

I’m not a state employee but I am offended to see all of the comments about lazy state employees and that they don’t work hard and couldn’t work in the private sector. I’m guessing that the largest group of PERS employees would be teachers. We have lots of teachers. And they deserve to be paid what they were promised. They work hard and have a tough job. If you don’t believe it, go sub one day.

"The COLA is equal to 3 percent of your annual base benefit for each full fiscal year of retirement prior to the year in which you reach age 55 (Retirement Tiers 1 through 3, see table below) or 60 (Retirement Tier 4), plus 3 percent compounded for each fiscal year thereafter, beginning with the fiscal year in which you turn age 55"

And as posted earlier- after reaching age 60- WOW. It's a secret, gleefully whispered amongst them.
Yes - some are going to eventually receive six figures annually.

8:02 - You are talking about every member of the legislature, 85% of the mayors in the state, County Supervisors and a handful of other folks sucking that tit while holding regular jobs.

8:09 - Howz your math, Bubba. Calculate nine years (actual years plus unused personal leave, medical leave, etc) at $330,000 using the formula and tell me what the '13th check will be after five years. Thanks, Bubba.

9:26 - Which agency employed you while you observed what you posted? State employees don't draw overtime. Many do leave the building at the end of their day, as required by management; however, many do not. the paradigm is no different in the private sector. Sorry you have such a sore-ass attitude.

10:30: Name them? I said I dealt with them, not was employed by them. I have been close to and have had dealings with the following employees that work for the following state agencies and depts. MSU, OLE MISS, State Tax Commission, MAFES, MS Dept of Banking and Finance, Transportation dept, just to name a few on the state side and several on the federal side.

Try to get a hold of a Gov't employee after hours or even get something done close to quitting time. Every one that I know that works or worked for the gov't was walking out the door and made it home way before I did. I have been salaried my entire career and all but a year or two was in industry. I was employed by gov’t right out of school. While at my short stint working at my not hard or demanding cushy gov’t job, I was disgusted by the politics, waste and abuse in the system. While there, I saw people more interested in spending weeks filing grievances against Management rather than doing their jobs. So, guess what, they had to have twice the number to do half the work. There were quotas on everything when hiring and promotions came around. If you could check multiple boxes, you had a greater chance of getting ahead. These people are Post Turtles and potentially could make your life miserable. It was a combination of who you knew and what boxes you filled, not what you knew and how hard you worked.

Retirement is the key for many gov’t workers. They are working for the retirement pay. You don't know the number of friends and acquaintances that have worked in their gov't job just long enough to get their 25 to 30 years in and are now going across state lines to get another 20 years in. All so they can get a 2nd state pension. Please tell me again how hard a gov’t employee works. I need another laugh.

12:14, go teach school for $36k per year and get back to me

2:02 PM They took the job at the pay that was offered. If you don't like the pay, look elsewhere, move, change careers. You have only yourself to blame if you stay in a job that pays crap, treats you like crap and make you feel like crap. I have no sympathy.

5:06, back to the point, they are simply asking to be paid what they were promised. They took the job that was offered, including the pension, which is a deferred form of compensation. Some on here want to change the offer after the fact. Did you miss that this thread is about pensions?

SO what should be the limit for contributions? 20% for employees? 50% for the state? Should there be a limit if the portfolio requires more money?

I’m a retiree, so I’m obviously biased; but I’ll add some things.

Yes, some of my contemporaries in the private sector probably earned half again to double what I did in salary. One of my reasons for staying in a PERS covered position was the promise of the deferred benefits.

Being a reasonable person, I realize it is not sustainable to raise the contribution rate by five percent every few years and I would welcome constructive solutions. I however resent the vilification of all of us in PERS; your Legislature greatly contributed to this crisis-largely to enrich themselves. I’ve seen no reasonable solutions offered on this forum.

Since my retirement, I sometimes work for a PERS employer. When I work as an independent contractor, which is usually for a short time or infrequently, PERS contributions are not paid on my earnings. This is just like an auditor, plumber or electrician performing work. Sometimes, I work as an employee-in lieu of a hire of someone in a PERS covered position. In those cases, I am limited in how much I can work and, the employing agency pays the employer PERS contribution, although I do not pay any employee portion. So, the PERS system receives contributions , for which are not tied to increasing benefits for anyone. This actually would seem like a win for the PERS system.

I worked hard and served my employer well. I do realize that is not always the case. As a salaried employee, I worked many extra hours. I was glad to do so; I took pride in doing my job.

Many employees who may receive a “salary” are likely hourly employees. While the salary portion is easy to calculate and understand, those employees are actually subject to overtime rules. In the past, there has been massive litigation among public employees vs employers for overtime violations. This is likely why management insists on most employees leaving as soon as the official workday is over.

I hope this helps. Reasonable discussion can be productive. Thanks to Kingfish for the sounding board.

The day of a PERS reckoning is coming. The trajectory is beyond bad. At current run rate employer contribution easily tops 30% within the next 10 years.

The retirees and participants can bury their collective heads in the ground about what they think is owed to them all they want. But if they don't engage now to influence an economically viable reform of the system they will have little voice when a non-satisfactory reform is forced upon them later.

Put Lubumba over PERS, he’ll get it a $600 million bailout from the Biden administration.

9:38, it’s not as if the funding level is plummeting. It’s been pretty steady at 60% for a decade. Not great, but the sky is certainly not falling. And the benefits paid out 40 years from now will be already be drastically devalued by inflation. If rates stay this high permanently, you will see some plans increase the assumed rate of return due to better bond yields. That will immediately make the math much better.

But I agree that basic, reasonable, simple reforms now could help a lot.

If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. The Legislature (past and present) created something to enrich themselves as was said. That's the reason this monstrosity will in fact fail. It didn't have to. The brain drain is one reason, and the other is that I would like to see not the "average" retiree payout, but rather the average payout of just the last ten years. THAT is what will make the thing founder.

7:23, please explain why the average over the last ten years would differ much than the $28k average that is currently going out? One would expect the average payout to increase just a bit every year as average wages go up. Please explain your comment to this dummy.

December 28, 2022 at 8:57 AM kingfish. I'd be happy with with a company match of 3% of salaries similar to industry. My retirement is not fully funded by moneys taken out of my paycheck in the form of Social Security (probably wont be available when I get ready to retire) or squirreled away in a 401k plan.(Gov't wants to take that to make up for the shortfall in Social Security). I was covered by a pension plan for about a year, but they closed it out and converted the plan over to a 401(k). So more than likely, I'll die at my desk or live on the street dealing with runaway inflation. As for December 28, 2022 at 8:13 AM, life is not fair. This is a government promise, subject to change. It is a government handout, it's not your money, same as Social Security. They don't have to pay you if they change the law/rules they will just go, to bad so sad got to hate it. When did the gov't ever keep a promise, ask any of the Indians on the trail of tears about any of the treaties that our gov't signed. Heck, how about the more recent promise you could keep your insurance if you liked it.

You didn't answer my question

Kingfish - Convert PERS to a 401K plan and then they can have a 3% match. They can put aside up to 22,500, of their own money, for 2023. Same as all us other flunkies who have our wages docked so that the government can turn around and give it to somebody more needy. Who is John Galt?

@10:34pm If you were in the know, you'd know just how many "high level administrators" making close to or well over six figures and had 30-40-45 years in. It's obscene. I'll bet it's probably more than the previous 30 years combined. THIS is what nobody is talking about....how many of those folks gamed the system to the end to chase those "high four years" and then out they went in the last ten years alone.

There will be silence on the matter...because it is what's responsible for the "sudden" PERS solvency crisis that had developed, and then accelerated - especially in the last 4-5 years.

SLRP...look at what this costs PERS ...and they obviously thought it clever to use that acronym...it's the "in your face" attitude with these fuckers (that includes on the national level too)

California
Illinois
PA

"State pension plans were hammered in 2022. Next year will be worse.
With Wall Street CEOs warning of financial carnage ahead, governors overseeing some of the nation’s largest pension systems are bracing themselves."

Just stop adding to the 13th check until balanced.

State employees actually make up a small portion of retireeshttps://www.pers.ms.gov/Content/Supplemental/persfacts_figures.pdf

Clyde Muse paid into the system for 67 years before pulling out a dime.

governors overseeing some of the nation’s largest pension systems are bracing themselves.

If there's a Board, governors don't oversee a damned thing.

If Clyde is still alive, he draws one helluva pension, probably about even with that of Cecil 'the frown' Brown who managed to bump over to a commissioner job for high four. If he's not dead, when he dies, his beneficiary will inherit the remainder of what HE had in the system that was not yet paid out in monthly benefits.

King: There probably should be a limit for both, but I have no idea how to set it. The figures you mentioned are totally unreasonable. But, as with Uncle Joe, some might say pay your 'fair share', lol.

RIP Commissioner Brown. Show some respect and quit looking ignorant.

And PS, Clyde will never get out what he paid in. He would have to live 30 more years. We need more Clyde Muse’s

Totally against SLRP as you are. However, it is not even a drop in the bucket, just a little bit of mist. $10 MILLION or so in assets against a $30 billion portfolio. SLRP is used by some of you as a deflection for discussing PERS.