What to do with Atlantic City?
New Jersey politicians and their enablers had a discussion today where they reviewed a secret report that kicked off with the suggestion:
To help ease the burden on city taxpayers, the recommendations include a three-year window for deferring the city’s employer contributions into the public employee pension system.
And that passes for a solution! How has this strategy worked out for the state which has been shortchanging the pension plans for a generation and is now in day 105 of awaiting more solutions from a study panel report that should have been released 45 days ago.
But the chilling paragraph of the northjersey.com story is:
The recommendations released Thursday were prepared by [Christie adviser Jon] Hanson, who also produced a report for Christie in 2010 that the governor used at the time to guide Atlantic City revitalization efforts.
The same adviser! Wasn’t there somebody in 2010 who looked at Hanson’s guide to AC revitalization then and saw it as a blueprint for closing half the casinos and mass layoffs? Or, if there was, would they have gotten the New Jersey treatment….
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Burypensions Blog 
Posted by Tough Love on November 13, 2014 at 6:25 pm
Quoting …. “To help ease the burden on city taxpayers, the recommendations include a three-year window for deferring the city’s employer contributions into the public employee pension system.”
AC is stone cold broke, and sinking fast. Rather than a phony “delay” in funding THE IMPOSSIBLE (the current grossly excessive pension & benefit promises made to it’s Public Sector workers … routinely 3x-4x greater in value at retirement than those of comparable Private Sector workers) what’s eminently needed is to shut down these Plans down RIGHT NOW … zero future growth.
Switch all the workers to a 401k-style DC Plan with the same 3-5% of pay “match” that Private Sector workers typically get from their employers.
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And 99% of all other NJ cities and towns (as well as the STATE itself) should do the SAME. There is ZERO justification for continuing these grossly excessive pensions & benefits THAT ONLY for PUBLIC Sector workers get … and 80-90% paid-for on the Taxpayers’ dime.
Posted by Anonymous on November 13, 2014 at 7:56 pm
TL do you walk around with a sandwich board that says “THE END IS NEAR, ITS TOO LATE”
Posted by Anonymous on November 13, 2014 at 9:11 pm
she is in denial because if the end is near, is near for her as well, she does not realize that at all
Posted by Anonymous on November 14, 2014 at 12:43 pm
In addition to the sandwich board I believe she also normally walks around with a mirror
Posted by Anonymous on November 13, 2014 at 7:13 pm
Hanson did as he was told and the process continues……
Posted by Titon7 on November 14, 2014 at 10:58 am
This further shows that the current state government is incapable of dealing with the pension issues or a.c. “Let’s merge two big problems and maybe one will go away” Remove all politicians and appointees from the state pension system. After Revel Atlantic City should never see a penny from the pension system.
Posted by Mickey Mouse on November 14, 2014 at 3:31 pm
Giving Atlantic City a 3 year holiday from paying into the pension is the PERFECT SOLUTION!! The pension system is already grossly underfunded. A little more will make no difference. In fact, give all cities an counties a 3 year holiday! More and more underfunding until the pension fund balance is ZERO… and stops sending pension checks. Then just walk away… Pension Problem solved! Let the unions howl at each other!
Posted by Mickey Mouse on November 14, 2014 at 3:44 pm
On second thought… make that a 25 year holiday!
Posted by Anonymous on November 14, 2014 at 4:06 pm
Truly a mickey mouse solution.
Posted by Anonymous on November 14, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Let’s have a NJ Loves AC weekend with all kinds of activities, with suggestion boxes. My suggestion promote the. FREE beach, replace the sand, add an open air weekend market with international foods. Lots of family activities.
Posted by dentss dunnagan on November 14, 2014 at 5:54 pm
just “do ac ……
Posted by Anonymous on November 14, 2014 at 7:20 pm
Pension concerns in Detroit coincide with a high-level debate among actuaries about their standards for funding public pensions and whether the public is adequately protected from more bankruptcies and Detroit-style disasters. The widespread practice of lowballing pension contributions today so that people will pay more down the road comes from the actuarial standards of practice.
Last month, the president of the Society of Actuaries, Errol Cramer, sent a letter to the Actuarial Standards Board expressing concern over “a misperception” on the part of the public. People have the idea, he said, that actuarial funding schedules were designed to produce enough money to pay for the pensions, “which they are not.”
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/detroit-emerges-from-bankruptcy-pension-risk-still-intact/#
Posted by Tough Love on November 16, 2014 at 4:55 pm
Quoting …”The widespread practice of lowballing pension contributions today so that people will pay more down the road comes from the actuarial standards of practice.”
That statement is wrong. A MUCH more accurate statement is :
“The widespread practice of lowballing pension contributions today so that people (meaning the Taxpayers) will not realize how outrageously generous Public Sector pensions are, ROUTINELY 3x-4x time more generous than what THEY typically get from their employers, and all while THEY are responsible for 80-90% of the total cost of these grossly excessive Public Sector pensions.”
Posted by bpaterson on November 18, 2014 at 4:19 pm
TL, that rings true. If the pension funding was done accurately all along, eyes would have been wide open to the spiraling cost increases and something just might have been done 10 years ago instead of the promises of the 9% pension increase of 2001 and the incessant annual 4-5% raises all last decade. This would surely have tamped down on the govt employee costs long time ago, never got into the expected and present largesse’ they are hold now, and would have kept our govt humble and tirelessly working as the civil servants they started out as, without the arrogant responses every time this issue with possible resolutions arise…..and the public would show more appreciation of their work.
Posted by Javagold on November 14, 2014 at 11:10 pm
1-2-3-4-5. Next up Trump Taj Mahal. Christie is large and in charge. Jersey Comback. LOL.
Don’t give the public takers another penny.
Posted by Mickey Mouse on November 15, 2014 at 10:43 am
I agree… Not another penny… use the Mickey Mouse approach explained above. No negotiating with the unions, just stop funding the insane level of public pensions for “public service” millionaires and double dipper Elites. Use the money to turn AC into Disney World North!
Posted by Tough Love on November 16, 2014 at 4:59 pm
Well Stated …… not another penny (of Taxpayer funds) towards funding NJ’s pension Plans until the benefit structure for the future service of all CURRENT workers in ALL of these Plans (State and Local) is reduced to a level no greater than the 3-5% of pay (into a 401K Plan) that Private Sector workers typically get from their employers.
Posted by bpaterson on November 18, 2014 at 4:23 pm
at least put those pennies aside in escrow, not have the pols just spend it somewhere else. There is certainly still an obligation due, just not the level of obligation that everyone is arguing about.
Posted by MJ on November 15, 2014 at 8:58 am
Yup, Trump is closing, pension holiday for AC in the works, home values still on the decline, the Jersey Comeback is pretty funny but Stockton College is buying the Show Boat and making it a satellite campus.
Posted by bpaterson on November 18, 2014 at 4:37 pm
jersey comeback, mission accomplished, if you like you doctor you can keep your doctor. Gruber is right, we are collectively stupid.