Cleveland
Cleveland officer who shot 14 year old considered unfit for duty by another police department (PBS Newshour)
National questions about police hit home in Cleveland (New York Times)
Cleveland Police evade Ohio's mandatory DNA collection law (Jurist)
Major expansion of The Cleveland Institute of Art nears completion (Cleveland.com)
Pittsburgh
Port Authority drivers ordered to stand trial for Pittsburgh bus crash (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)
Pittsburgh mayor stars on reality TV show, "Undercover Boss" (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)
LBPC to unveil plans for a more walkable, bikeable Lawrenceville (Bike Pittsburgh)
US Steel keeps headquarters in Pittsburgh for a price (Pennsylvania Independent)
State liquor laws hurt young musicians (Pittsburgh City Paper)
Pennsylvania
Why 2015 could be the year for medical marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Independent)
Climbing employee pension costs squeeze state budget (Pennsylvania Independent)
No escape from pension math in Pennsylvania (Bloomberg News)
Harvard study ranks Pennsylvania among top 5 most corrupt states (CBS Philly)
Philadelphia regional transit system, SEPTA finally ditching tokens and paper tickets (NBC 4)
Other Urbanism and Architecture News
Can different training make police officers guardians, not warriors?
Do federal stats undercount police killings? (PBS Newshour)
More than 1000 people have been killed by police in 2014 (Reason)
Houston police chief calls drug war a "miserable failure", says Feds need to lead reform (Huffington Post)
Walkability vs. affordability (Washington Post)
More Americans are behind on car payments (CNN Money)
How a train station offering no new service cost $4 Billion in NYC (New York Times)
"Latino Urbanism" influences a Los Angeles in flux (Los Angeles Times)
Why the Da Vinci fire has L.A. urbanists rethinking downtown's future (Los Angeles Times)
Tech Culture and rising inequality: A complex relationship (CityLab)
Why Nashville is still America's music city (Next City)
Detroit artist: Actually Detroit isn't so cheap (Next City)
Copenhagen plans to expand by building artificial islands (CityLab)
Late-night transit service to expand from San Francisco to East Bay (San Francisco Examiner)
Other Arts and Archeology News
Pioneering Brooklyn Art space, Galapagos moves to Detroit (Detroit Free Press)
How Mosaics are shaping Haiti's future (Hyperallergic)
Miami graffiti artist in critical condition after cop runs him over (Hyperallergic)
Photographers irked as Flickr profits from creative commons images (Hyperallergic)
Museums and market finally warming to works on paper (The Art Newspaper)
A documentary traces the history of video game graphics (Hyperallegic)
Can satellite fairs give artists their first big break? (The Art Newspaper)
Showing posts with label Pension Tsunami. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pension Tsunami. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Pension Page
Since politicians, like Luke, Tom Murphy and others are falling over themselves to take credit for the very tenuous progress the city has made in recent years, perhaps one or two will admit to their role in it's pension mess.
Chris Briem, of Null Space put up one page with a snapshot of a lot of the available and historical data.
Total Pension Liability
1995 $622,955,188
1997 $667,753,390
1999 $685,248,322
2001 $712,978,251
2003 $765,763,493
2005 $843,382,550
2007 $899,248,578
2009 ?
Unfunded Liability
1995 $515,338,148
1997 $510,778,634
1999 $248,634,632
2001 $289,919,819
2003 $453,292,528
2005 $469,774,143
2007 $523,879,854
2009 ?
Funding Ratio by Year
1995 17.28%
1997 23.51%
1999 63.72%
2001 59.34%
2003 40.81%
2005 44.30%
2007 41.70%
2009 ?
It's not like any of this stuff was as secret. To the extent we didn't know it's cause we didn't want to know. The page links to a post article from 1978 which calls it Pittsburgh's wasting disease.
A root cause of all this was the city's shrinkage from a city of close to 750,000 residents in 1960 to not much over 300,000 today. This brings on two other issues, the first of which is why did the city lose so many residents while retaining so much of the regions job base? The cities shrinkage far outpaces that of the region.
The second, is why didn't the city shrink it's employee base and even more importantly make more realistic deals with it's municipal unions? The pension mess is visible effect of a culture of deception and procrastination which permiates all levels of government. Employees were promised these plush pension and health benefits because these obligations didn't have to be disclosed honestly to the taxpayers.
This isn't just a Pittsburgh thing. Yesterday, the dollar index dropped near an all time low.
Chris Briem, of Null Space put up one page with a snapshot of a lot of the available and historical data.
Total Pension Liability
1995 $622,955,188
1997 $667,753,390
1999 $685,248,322
2001 $712,978,251
2003 $765,763,493
2005 $843,382,550
2007 $899,248,578
2009 ?
Unfunded Liability
1995 $515,338,148
1997 $510,778,634
1999 $248,634,632
2001 $289,919,819
2003 $453,292,528
2005 $469,774,143
2007 $523,879,854
2009 ?
Funding Ratio by Year
1995 17.28%
1997 23.51%
1999 63.72%
2001 59.34%
2003 40.81%
2005 44.30%
2007 41.70%
2009 ?
It's not like any of this stuff was as secret. To the extent we didn't know it's cause we didn't want to know. The page links to a post article from 1978 which calls it Pittsburgh's wasting disease.
A root cause of all this was the city's shrinkage from a city of close to 750,000 residents in 1960 to not much over 300,000 today. This brings on two other issues, the first of which is why did the city lose so many residents while retaining so much of the regions job base? The cities shrinkage far outpaces that of the region.
The second, is why didn't the city shrink it's employee base and even more importantly make more realistic deals with it's municipal unions? The pension mess is visible effect of a culture of deception and procrastination which permiates all levels of government. Employees were promised these plush pension and health benefits because these obligations didn't have to be disclosed honestly to the taxpayers.
This isn't just a Pittsburgh thing. Yesterday, the dollar index dropped near an all time low.
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