Jackson Jambalaya

Buying retiree votes, $500 million at a time.

Lets see employer contributes and additional 2.5% ? Since government doesn’t produce or sell a product just say the truth they giving more of our tax money to PERS

As a State Retiree drawing retirement funds from PERS the formula for retirees must be adjusted to insure that PERS doesn’t continue to go in the hole every year.

Is this the proverbial rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

The 13th is the problem. Just adjust the next years monthly benefit rate at 2.5% or whatever based on inflation and that’s it. Doesn’t matter if you got a 10% return that has to go back into the fund to build it up, you don’t use all of the earnings that year. Another thing, board members shouldn’t be recipients of any of the payouts, see retired state employees, let someone with common sense run this fund and make decisions. Hell I’ll do it for free for 12 months and I have a business. If you put this money into the fund PERS BOARD WILL GIVE IT OUT IN MORE BENEFITS.

The outsize cost of retirees far exceeds their actual contribution to the State while employed. The functional ineffectiveness of a union without the union.

Pass a law that if PERS' unfunded liability ever exceeds 50%, all legislators go to Parchman for a year and have the law apply retroactively to all of the morons that could have fixed it. If we ever get ballot initiative, this one needs to be first in line.

PERS is underfunded by $26 billion. Throwing $1 billion at it over ten years is better than nothing, but this just appears to be an attempt to get folks to forget about it for a while.

Being a PERS retiree I appreciate that the legislature is finally doing something. I have no idea how this will affect the actuarial table but seems to me that even with the infusion of funds all they are doing is helping to keep the unfunded liability from increasing every year. Even with this funding an additional consistent revenue stream is necessary to even begin to reduce the unfunded deficit. That along with structural changes to benefits for future retirees is necessary. I agree with the critics of the system in general but we as state, county and municipal workers were not allowed to opt out of PERS and plan our own retirement. The state entered into a contract with all of us that if we completed a set requirements then the state would provide certain benefits. The critics should not blame retirees, blame your elected officials who established the system in the first place. Also, many of you voted for them to represent you. Most, if not all of them are long gone so now the current representatives are left with trying to make sure the state keeps its promises. Maybe they can figure out a way to get away from having a PERS in the future and allow workers to provide for their own retirement, but that’s way down the road.

@8:39pm - We’ll never get the ballot initiative back with the current bunch of GOP thugs in office. They know the citizens will legalize weed and abortion, and the good God fearing GOP hypocrites can’t have that.

yet some crazy folks thing tier 5 is a bad idea...$500M could do a lot things for this state other than pay retirees...

If we ever get ballot initiative, this one needs to be first in line.

What would be the ballot question? Fully fund PERS to the detriment of all other state government operations including Education? Rob Peter to pay Paul?

"the $50 million annual contribution will not even cover the amount of the COLA increase."

Although the total COLA is a billion, the annual increase in recent years is $1-5 million.

This is a policy challenge only time will fix (insert Vincent Price laugh track here).

Why not try a novel approach like millions of other Americans. DON’T SPEND MORE THAN YOU PUT IN!!!

9:29 Back off the weed. Weed and abortion wouldn't be legalized, but term limits might get passed. Yet your hatred of all things Christian is duly noted.

Simple solution. Fire half of them. If that doesn’t solve the problem, fire half of the remaining workers. State employees are the most inefficient, unnecessary excuses for people who call themselves “public servants”.

That is all. Mississippi.

Oh joy. So I, without a pension, get to see my tax taxes distributed to enhance the retirement of those with a pension.

9:51 The one thing you will never hear from an education bureaucrat is, "We have sufficient funding." The scam of education is that it is designed, not to teach children but to build a bloated staffing force. Teaching kids is the last consideration.

I'm not sure the actuarial tables were/are being adjusted fast enough to keep up with how young, retired state employees are, and/or how much longer they will live compared to previous generations.

Also, allowing beneficiaries to pass the monthly spousal benefit on to their grandchildren probably needs to be adjusted.

PERS benefits should be no better or worse than any other retirement program.

If they would stop using money managers who charge way too much in fees, it would help a lot. Too many handshake deals to hire managers that are not needed. Hire an in-house management team and cut costs.

7:17am https://www.mspb.ms.gov/

So y'all are against retirement funds/pensions or just plain old savings accounts? Most jobs have a version of a 401K or pension fund and if your work doesn't, you can create your own. You can also buy treasury bonds. I think some of you just won't learn how to do the math to save for old age and resent those who have. It's not " elitism" to learn math. And, you will be learning painfully what government does for society when you get to be on the bottom rung. You will be cheap labor with no health care and no income when you are too old to dig a ditch. FYI, a corporation sells the pension money along with the corporation and the new owner doesn't have to honor your agreement with the seller. Ignorance is dangerous and deliberate ignorance is on you. You were the idiots who let Nixon raid our Social Security funds claiming there was more money than would ever be needed. That was BS.

Covid didn't kill off enough Baby Boomers to help PERS. The boomers sat by for decades not enacting meaningful changes to fund the program that they will now drain into nothing. How did the greatest generation raise such a useless generation that is just a drain on the world and wants to complain about everyone else when they are the ones that have been in power for the last 30 years.

The jealousy of those who lack retirement plans is disgusting. My husband spent 25+ years working at UMMC for substandard wages when compared to other states and private hospitals. He probably helped save the lives of some of the negative commenters here who think public employees do nothing and deserve nothing. He was promised PERS retirement as part of his compensation package and the State cannot legally renege on it now. All you jealous loafers need to get a job that provides retirement and/or you'd better be saving your money to provide for yourself after you retire.

7:15. Idk about abortion, but I would much rather have Weed be legal then Alcohol. One of those will actually kill you if you consume too much. One is far more addictive then the other. I've never heard of Weed smokers Anonymous. Meanwhile, when I worked at a liquor store I saw dozens of people in my small town drown themselves everyday with liquor

Look! Free money from the Legislature

Simple solution, issue bonds (which means make the taxpayers pay for it), tell the ignorant tax payers the system is fixed just like you have done time and time again. I have a much quicker, simpler, fairer way to fix it. Cut all Mississippi retirees pensions and freeze them. You know, it might not hurt these leeches to go out and find a real job.

>Also, allowing beneficiaries to pass the monthly spousal benefit on to their grandchildren probably needs to be adjusted.
Does this actually happen?

I don't have time to look, but what all is this invested in and the returns on their investments? I saw the rate of return at one time was sub 5% when the market was easily giving 10+%. It still is. And the fees paid for managing the investments was absurd. Hell, you could pay someone a few hundred grand a year to manage it and put it all in the S&P500 and maybe a few other ETFs and save a ton and have a solid ROR.

Hey 7:15 apparently you have no idea how PERS works. Current state employee contributions are funding the benefits for retirees. Less state employees exacerbates the issue.

7:17 this was a contract between the state and it's employees. Apparently you were not of concern when it was entered into. Just because you are a tax payer does not mean you get to 86 the state's retiree's retirement. It doesn't work like that. The state is bound to the terms of the contract that most likely was inked before you got all worried about it. You should have thought about that before you started working where you worked. PERs was a benefit of taking a low paying job working for the state.

Take away the 5 year credited for 4 years served for elected officials. Put a cap on who is eligible. If you make over 100k save for your own retirement. All teachers, fireman and police would be safe I promise. It isn’t us that bankrupting the system.

@6:48
You still taking the horse and wagon cross country to town or do you use a road?
Got your own security force or do you have local and state law enforcement?
Got all the criminals in your own personal prison?
Got your own well?
Got your own one room school house?
I could go on, but hopefully even you get the point.

@7:15 If being a state employee is such an easy job with great retirement, why don't you go get a state job?

If you modernize state pay, the people paying in would increase.

Damn I am glad I left the state for the private sector in 2011, cashed out my retirement and invested it in Bitcoin.
The state has way too many agencies, way too many freeloading employees with no incentive to do a good job other than hanging for that PERS check. The best thing a state employee can do is get off that state government tit but most won't.

The most ignorant comments in the history of this blog are found in this thread.

You're exaggerating.

8:08 just demonstrated that he is clueless on the nuances of defined benefit versus defined contribution plans.

@10:54am - Par for the course for all the mouth breathing Magatards that post here.

Not enough, little impact, too late, more of the same.