Jackson Jambalaya

Got a funny feeling this issue is going to take some pictures off the wall at the State Capitol.

This was a bill to benefit some lobbyists who needed to kill a "threat" in order to justify their existence. Or, could be the Chairman paying the casinos back for some slight.

Torpedo dead ahead, and all of Mississippi's compartments are already flooded.

Politics in Mississippi is going to get very ugly in the not-to-distant future.

Tell us something we don't know. Anybody who can read knows this has been cussed and discussed ad infinitum for the past three or four weeks on multiple media sources, public speakings and legislators' public venues.

Your epistle is copy and paste at its worst.

PS: Delbark has not mentioned the subject in months. He knows he will not be elected governor if this Board replacement thing becomes law.

And Tater knows he can kiss his vision of attaining Cindy's position goodbye if he signs it.

Barbour was the governor who started the proceedure that allowed agency heads to be exempt from State Personnel Board rules and put a hatchet to any and all employees without recourse. That's when the headcount began it's negative movement.

Recently, your Lt. Governor bragged in campaign literature that he has reduced the size of government employees. Now he laments it.

When all the boomers die off, it will be fine.

The house is passing the blame on to someone else so they can claim they didn't have anything to do with the destruction of PERS. That's why they voted to give the governor and lt. governor the authority to select board members. These legislators are simply making a move to be able tell their constituents that it's someone else's fault. PERS will survive. I hope these legislators that will look you in the eye and lie to you won't. If they will do away with SLRP which is something they never should have had then I will do my part.

The lack of action to address this is another example of the failure by our elected representatives to provide solutions to not only the financial problems at PERS, but with the financial stability of our country as a whole. With the debt in the neighborhood of $36 TRILLION and growing larger by the minute, at some point the government will no longer be able to service the debt. I am not smart enough to know what the consequences will be, but I don’t think it will be good. As with PERS the solutions to our financial problems will not be popular, but necessary for the future generations.
As long as the primary goal of our elected representatives is to be re-elected, they will not make the difficult/ unpopular decisions that are necessary. At some point in the not to distant future, the system collapses.
It’s our fault for continuing to elect the same people over and over again, but expecting different results.

The present governor (his name will come to me shortly) was an automatic member of this board for 8 years, while state treasurer. Now he's suddenly interested in Board membership?

What did he contribute, oppose, favor, put forth or find disfavorable all those years?

@1:52, the answer is nothing because even if he had any ideas on solutions for the long term funding of PERS it is likely those solutions would have been unpopular with PERS members. All he wanted to be was re-elected, then elected Lt. Governor, then Governor, then US Senator.
ALL of the current elected representatives know that PERS will be around another 10-20 years and they will be long gone slurping their benefits.
As one state senator once told me, anytime someone mentions changes to PERS they get death threats. It will take real courage to change the system.

SLURP should be the first thing to go.
I can’t believe this discriminatory program has not been challenged in Court.
Why should legislators be the only state employees who enjoy this grift?

10:44
Destruction ? How so ?
So just tell the legislators don’t do anything, it’ll be aight??

I will not vote for any current legislator living in my district pretending to represent me by trying to pull the wool over my eyes. When my legislators do something with SLRP that compares to what they want to do with PERS then I will come back around to listening to what they have to say.

But, but...the talking heads of Super-Talk assure us all that SLRP should be ignored since it's chump change.

The talking heads don't understand the message sent by the creation of SLRP in the first place.

I've ordered a case of T-shirts to be delivered to the SuperTalk suite.

The shirt reads:

I JUST F'in DON'T GET IT!

NOT SWEET 16, BUT SWEET SLRP...

"Supplemental Legislative Retirement Plan (SLRP)


Effective July 1, 1989, the Mississippi Legislature enacted a Supplemental Legislative Retirement Plan (SLRP) for members of the State Legislature and the President of the Senate (Lieutenant Governor).


The plan was designed to supplement the benefits provided to members of the Legislature by PERS. Those
serving when SLRP became effective had 30 days to waive membership.


Those elected after July 1, 1989,
automatically became members.
Like PERS, SLRP is a defined benefit plan, and, though members of SLRP are also mandatory members of PERS, SLRP is funded by employee and employer contributions separate from those made to PERS.


Eligibility for benefits is determined by eligibility requirements in PERS. The retirement allowance is 50 percent of an amount equal to the retirement allowance payable by PERS determined by credited service and salary as an elected senator or representative in the Mississippi Legislature or as President of the Senate.


Benefits vest upon completion of the requisite number of membership service years in PERS.


SLRP also provides certain death and disability benefits. Members who terminate coverage prior to
becoming eligible for a retirement allowance may request a refund of employee contributions.


Retirees and beneficiaries of SLRP also receive a COLA calculated identically to those provided to PERS retirees and beneficiaries."

"When all the boomers die off, it will be fine."

Astute and accurate observation, because it's what this whole PERS equation is really all about - timing.

Is it possible to acquire the age breakdown of all those receiving benefits at present to estimate that timing when things would be brought back in to balance? Do the legislators already have that information? It really would be easier to determine if/when there is a point of no return.

9:11
Legislators are in PERS and SLRP is under PERS as well, I don’t understand what you think they are doing that is so bad ? I know a bunch of them and the thought they d mess their own retirement up is a stupid idea .

When the majority of PERS funding comes from state income taxes and local property taxes, how do y’all think it’s going to survive when only a fraction of Mississippians actually work and pay state income taxes bc most live off government entitlements like Social Security and SSI and are exempt from paying state income taxes. And those on SS only pay a fraction of property taxes due to special homestead exemption they get. Also, all the folks working for cash and not reporting or paying state income taxes in Mississippi is epidemic. Look around, there are very few people working and honestly reporting and paying taxes these days.

People like to ignore math until it can't be ignored any longer. Costs are going up, the government gets its money from taxes. Therefore, taxes must go up, yeah you can look around and trim some fat from budgets so that the increase isn't dollar for dollar but at the end of the day that is what will have to happen. Should have done something 20 years ago but now it is time to pay the piper.

About 40 years ago, four brilliant women in finance and/or accounting were laughing at lunch about the predictable political appearance of PERS "male hysteria". It's an affliction confined usually to elected officials and pundits who take them seriously. It's particularly noticeable in males who have been out of school (any level) for 5+ years including those who had graduate level math, but not relevant coursework. Nor did they ever look at successful state retirement fund evaluation methods. Rather than admit they are clueless they have a common manner of attempting to hide their cluelessness. They stare at the documents, and nod sagely,look at the ceiling (often forming a pyramid with tips of the fingers on both hands) and announce they are " concerned" as this is "serious".
Here's a little secret...IF you can't look beyond the numbers to the operational environment and unique characteristics of the population served and you don't know how to forecast accurately, panic is inevitable. If you don't bother to look at successful plans,you don't know what solutions might work here or even whether a problem exists at all.
You do know that x number of people who paid in, will die (or have died)? Some workers move away and never bother to claim what was paid in...too much aggravation for too little return. Paperwork gets lost in moves after retirement or after qualifying.
The Mississippi legislature for years , only had two people who actually understood and could explain the math. Both are gone. Delbert probably can but it's doubtful he gets accurate information and has the forensic accounting skills to see what's "off" in the figures he does get.

But, y'all keep on electing those good ole boys, ok?

The "gap" is really much worse than PERS and its actuary present. Here's a link to the Federal Reserve website where state public pension liabilities are presented. https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/pension/funding_status/table/ In 2021, the unfunded liability for Mississippi was $41.2 billion. Using the same discount for 2023 as the Fed uses, it's $47.5 billion for PERS alone. Friends, this is going in the wrong direction using a constant discount rate. Mississippi can solve this problem only with a major restructuring of PERS, an infusion of cash for a period of time, and a constitutional amendment to restrain the Legislature from committing the errors of the 1998-2002 period and to require employers to pay the actuarially determined contributions.

Crawford is wrong. Local governments are already getting away with below market wages because they have PERS. The state should not bail out the local governments portion of PERS. That would be subsidizing the local governments. The local mayors need to tighten the belt.

Once again, there are billions to access from the community colleges and universities. An ocean of money to shore things up, while fixing it all and righting the canoe.