ERISA guidelines are not enforced on public pensions, but most of them follow them voluntarily, because their states have oversight and implement their own guidelines to be consistent with ERISA. Look at the ERISA guidelines and say which ones the City doesn't follow before stating that the city has no guidelines. Besides, if the city has no guidelines, then it means that Michigan has no guidelines. That would also mean that MERS [[the board that Bing wants to handle the City's funds) also has no guidleines, because MERS is also a public pension fund that is subject to Michigan legislation and not subject to ERISA.
There is no slight of hand involved in saying the City's pension is 99% funded. It is. It was 110% funded before the recession. All pensions are required to disclose an accurate % funded, in accordance with the Pension Protection Act. The Act gives private funds 8-10 years to make up shortages and gives public funds 30 years to make up shortages. And here's where it gets interesting.
MERS used to allow participating municipalities to join while funding their obligations at as low as 50%. Now they have raised it to 80% [[still not good enough) and will give them time to make up the difference. So, perhaps the City wants to move to MERS so they can truly start underfunding the pension, which will only put it at more risk and push the obligation off on future taxpayers.
Also, every pension fund that is not 100% funded, and most are not, relies upon the employer continuing to make promised contributions to get it to the 100% mark and keep it there as obligations increase.
Let a person with a strong financial background compare MERS to the City's pension fund and say which one is performing better.
BTW, people are taking advantage of the lax guidelines governing travel and compensation for expenses. That is something the State of Michigan can fix and should fix on behalf of the entire state.
City employees current and retired have invested a significant amount of their own money into the pension system. So they have every right to voice concern over what happens with it.
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