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Originally Posted by songkrai
This is an absurd conclusion. If any fund is underfunded then funds were not placed into the find as was supposed to be or funds were removed.
The reality is that the state governments were and are 'stealing' the pension funds to pay other bills.
If you are of the mind that there are too many state employees that is another argument. Run for office on that platform. Or support candidates that avow to lower or cut the number of state employees. You can start with the state police. Public works employees. Department of Environmental Services. Cut them. Go ahead.
Don't cut the number of secretaries and administrative assistants at the NH Supreme Court though as that has already been tried by former Governor Benson. He did just that. And justice was delayed and all were hired back.
To claim that the state pension fund is underfunded because of the number of state employees is just plain absurd. The fund may be underfunded but it is the state legislature that agreed to raid the monies and use those pension funds for other reasons.
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Actually, it's not absurd. Toad is dead on. I am an elected official in my (Mass.) town and one of the major issues we face is the unfunded liability of municipal employees' pensions and health care. Collective bargaining agreements by the town's unions have left us with a large and somewhat difficult to project future costs. While pension costs can be roughly projected, health care costs cannot. This makes our task of setting budgets and tax rates year-to-year very difficult. In fact, we recently voted to create a trust fund to help us lend stability to our resident's tax bill in the face of ever rising health care costs. I'm sure this post will draw the usual Mass./NH comments but, in my opinion, the fundamental issue is the same in both states.