Tradition of New Jersey governors padding their own pensions

Pity the actuary who has to value the true cost of New Jersey’s defined benefit pension promises when these three spiking games are considered:
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Here is the back-story on the first example presented in the video:

NJTA Meeting This Thursday – Pension Reform in New Jersey

The New Jersey Taxpayers Association (NJTA) Board of Trustees proudly presents Pension
Actuary and NJTA board member John Bury to discuss Pension Reform in New Jersey,
followed by Q&A.  Bring your questions.

EVENT DETAILS:

Where: Morris County Public Library, 30 East Hanover Road, Whippany, NJ

When: Thursday, December 6th, 2012, 7pm to 8:30pm

Note – The NJTA board of trustees will meet for a board meeting from 7pm to 7:30pm.
All members of the NJTA are invited to attend.

Free Admission: There is no fee for this event; however seating is limited to the
first 80 participants.

Judges paying for their pensions: a question for interpretation

I will be voting on November 6 but not for any person since the electoral process for individuals has devolved into a quagmire of obfuscation that allows for no reasoned discourse.  However in New Jersey there are two ballot questions (laid out here in English, Spanish, and conveniently Chinese – I think).

Number 1 is straight-forward.  Politicians want to build more school buildings to repay all those lawyers and contractors who fund their campaigns.  No conflict for me here.

Number 2 is about judges in New Jersey being forced to pay more for their health and pension benefits which is supposed to win easy approval but I’m not so sure it should.

GASB Vote Today – What it means for tomorrow

This afternoon we will get new reporting standards for public pension plans as the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) votes on rules that would be effective in 2015.  From the summaries of the proposed changes that I’ve read here are two reasons why nothing will change much and one reason why the situation may get far worse.

Advice to NJ unions

The end of your pension is near unless the PBA, NJEA, PERS find some qualified (outside) lawyers. http://burypensions.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/no-pension-guarantee-in-new-jersey/  Posting on njlawman.com forum today

I tend to agree except for one word.

Nitwit Blubber Oddman Tweak

Can any Harry Potter or Albus Doubledore fans out there explain to me why UMDNJ Chair Dr. Kevin Barry would have uttered those four words to start off his keynote speech at today’s UMDNJ graduation ceremony at the IZOD center?

The only clues I have are that immediately after he uttered those words he read a brief pro-forma congratulatory letter from Governor Christie and then repeated those four words directly after Christies’s letter and again as he finished his speech.

Christie’s Pension Whoppers

In what might be a record, Reggie Miller once hit consecutive threes against the Knicks in the space of a few seconds:

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It wasn’t that Reggie Miller hadn’t ever hit two shots consecutively. It was the rapidity and deftness of execution combined with the game situation that astounded.

So it was today when Governor Christie talked pensions in his budget address:
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Politicians lie all the time but rarely have two whoppers been shot off so quickly with so little time left.

Beyond the Plateau

According to this chart the New Jersey state pension plans had $67 billion in assets in 1998 and, after a few  peaks and troughs, they still have $67 billion in assets now.  So what’s the problem?

Backward Thinking on Tax Reform Is Backfiring in NJ

Governments in New Jersey are bloated with no-show jobs, no-bid contracts, and kickbacks to political sponsors which is a primary reason that taxes here are the highest in the nation.

However, the ‘starve-the-beast’ tactic that New Jersey politicians continue to use is making things much worse as political machines are thinking up projects that will fall into the debt-exception so that favored donors can keep getting their contracts and cronies can keep their jobs.  Here is a particularly clumsy example of how it works.

The actuary as fall guy

According to Bloomberg New York City’s  chief actuary is recommending that the city’s $115.2 billion pension plans lower their assumed annual rate of return on assets to 7% from 8%, which would open a funding gap of at least $2 billion next year.  They go on to say that the city has already set aside $1 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1 to cover an increase in its annual pension contribution.

So this sensible interest rate change will cost $2 billion and the city has $1 billion of that.  What about the other billion?

For that we turn to the New York Post which reports that, in addition to revising the rate of return, North is also recommending a change in key accounting practices which would allow the city to pass some of the costs to Bloomberg’s successors citing sources involved in the pension analysis who said North’s staff was concerned that too big a hit all at once could cause a budget catastrophe at City Hall.  “The impact would be too great,” said one analyst involved in the discussions between the actuary and the administration. “You have to look at the [city’s] ability to pay.”

No you don’t!