Source: Jonathan Walters, Governing, July 2011
States are putting limits on their pension plans and retiree benefits, usually calling for employees to pay more toward their future.
Rewriting State Retirement Plans
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Category Archives: Public Sector
Are the Unions Winning the Fight?
Source: Alan Greenblatt, Governing, July 2011
Governors and mayors say their workers are demanding unsustainable benefits. Union rebuttals are not turning the tide.
Closing the Gap: Understanding and Managing State Pension and Retiree Health Care Benefits
Source: Pew Center on the States, June 2011
Policy makers from 25 states explored the long-term challenges posed by their public sector retirement costs at the Pew Center on the States’ conference, “Closing the Gap: Understanding and Managing State Pension and Retiree Health Care Benefits.” The event covered the financial risks posed by gaps in state and local pension and retiree health benefit funding, options to address public sector retirement costs and the effects of those changes on the state workforce..”
Robert H. Attmore, chairman of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), discussed likely changes to accounting and financial reporting standards that would affect all state and local public sector pension plans.
Several state officials discussed how they are confronting pension issues, including Gina Raimondo, general treasurer for the State of Rhode Island, and officials from Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska and Pennsylvania.
Sessions included:
– Gauging the Risks–Public Sector Retirement Liabilities
– Gauging the Risks–State Case Studies
– Bending the Curve–Long-term Pension Cost
– Bending the Curve–State Workforce Retention and Recruitment
– Bending the Curve–Retiree Health Care and Other Non-pension Benefits
– The National Significance of State and Local Public Sector Retirement Issues
– The State-Local Balancing Act
– Looking Forward: Striking the Right Balance
Lessons from Well-Funded Public Pensions: An Analysis of Plans that Weathered the Financial Storm
Source: Jun Peng, Ilana Boivie, National Institute on Retirement Security, June 2011
From the summary:
A new study identifies common elements of public sector defined benefit pension plans that remained well-funded despite two severe economic downturns.
See also:
– Press release
– PowerPoint
– Fact sheet
Cutting retired government employee benefits
Source: Robert Barkin, American City & County, Vol. 126 no. 6, June 2011
States and locals trim retired government employee benefits to control costs, careful not to cripple themselves in the future
Working Prisoners Save Taxpayers’ Money
Source: Russell Nichols, Governing, Vol. 24 no. 8, May 2011
States are increasingly utilizing prison labor to plug budget holes, but public employee unions aren’t happy.
What Wisconsin Means
Source: Roger Bybee, Dollars and Sense, no. 294, May/June 2011
The “Wisconsin uprising” has slowed the newest anti-labor salvo….While Walker’s anti-union moves are on hold in the courts, labor and progressives have a chance to do something even more important than recalling Republican state legislators: to build a durable coalition that will support union rights and oppose draconian budget cuts.
The Real Stakes of Getting Tough with Public Workers
Source: John D. Donahue Government Finance Review, Vol. 27 no. 2, April 2011
(subscription required)
From the abstract:
A coherent consensus on where public workers stand, relative to their private-sector counterparts, is elusive. One reason is the complexity of the issues involved in governmental employee compensation.
The Fallacy of Union Busting
Source: Sylvester Schieber and Phillip Longman, Washington Monthly, Vol. 43 nos. 5-6, May-June 2011
Taking power away from labor won’t rescue states form their fiscal woes–but giving power to voters might.
Dogging Walker
Source: Matthew Rothschild, Progressive, Vol. 75 no. 6, June 2011
(subscription required) (scroll down)
Activists say it’s time to make Wisconsin ungovernable.