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How awful is this! As the New York Times said, it proves the unthinkable can happen. The town simply has no money.
PRICHARD, Ala. — This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.
Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.
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Thanks for the article Savannah.
The only thing left do do, it looks like, is to tax the #ell out of the taxpayers!
I guess governmental entities with a small tax base have risk exposure to this pension claim. But, what about all of the poor workers who have relied on those pensions for many year and are about to retire? I bet there are many more small government groups (school districts, water boards, city/county employees) that can not see their way out of this situation.
It's a real mess...
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Thanks for the article Savannah.
The only thing left do do, it looks like, is to tax the #ell out of the taxpayers!
I guess governmental entities with a small tax base have risk exposure to this pension claim. But, what about all of the poor workers who have relied on those pensions for many year and are about to retire? I bet there are many more small government groups (school districts, water boards, city/county employees) that can not see their way out of this situation.
It's a real mess...
It is a real mess indeed. Can you imagine working all those years and looking forward to retiring then this happens? It's terrible. Heck, the government's quick to hand out money to Wall St and the big banks. Can't they sort out funding for this and save these people?
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It's already too late for anyone to save the retired police captain. Shame on them. If they don't want a repeat of that shocking situation the government has to take action! If he was a family member of mine, I'd be looking for someone to sue for wrongful death. That man died as a direct result of not having his money imho.
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For many years, the city — like many other cities and states today — knew that its pension plan was underfunded. As recently as 2004, the city hired an actuary, who reported that “the plan is projected to exhaust the assets around 2009, at which time benefits will need to be paid directly from the city’s annual finances.”
The town had five years notice that this would happen. Did they do everything in their power in that timespan to fix this? Because if not, the retirees' lawyers will skin them alive. One of the council members has admitted he himself has doubts in the article.
“I think the biggest disappointment I have is that there was not a strong enough effort to put something in there,” he said. “And that’s the reason that it’s hard for me to look these people in the face: because I’m not certain we really gave our all to prevent this.”
I'm shocked that could ever happen.
That's a poor argument against writing those checks. It's not their fault that the city mismanaged the pension fund. And now these poor people have to fight it all in court? That's appalling.
Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are. - Alfred Austin