The Board of Finance proposed a resolution to lower the cost to the city of the retirement system for city employees. The resolution, noting that city contributions to the retirement fund jumped from about $1.5 million in fiscal year 2002 to $4.6 million this year and are “still not sufficient to meet the actuarially projected future costs.”
This part was a bit confusing to me… when city employees spoke out about this during the public forums at the city council meeting, they were under the impression that they were promised a certain level of benefits in exchange for lower wages. If the city did in fact promise them these benefits then they do owe it to them… they should weasel out of it. However, as we all should should know that retirement funds to have fluctuation and the economy is still not performing as well as it has in the past, so investments are still generally lower. This is the problem for the city’s retirement fund. However, I believe it’s only temporary. Besides, the retirement fund should generally be invested in safe investments such as bonds… maybe they messed up… and now they want to pass on their promises. It’s seems that the city had plenty of money to give the YMCA last year and they have enough money to go after churches to take their property… you can’t trust a politian I guess.
