Reply to Meals tax money - 4th grade strings - Immersion

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Meals tax money - 4th grade strings - Immersion - where the money goes...!!"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]There seems to be some confusion.  The OP was talking about the cost of living adjustment - and specifically supported Defined Benefit plans.  The benefits for retirees (and for those of us who are accruing benefits currently - the actives) are not up for change.  The proposal is to change the way the cola is calculated, from a fixed rate of 3% to a CPI based rate.  All the State, Federal and County plans use CPI.  Only ERFC sets a fixed rate at 3%.  If inflation exceeds 3% the ERFC beneficiaries will lose out.  The cola is only designed to make up for what is lost to inflation and was never intended to add additional money to the benefits.

You may want to consider that a pension 'promise' is just that, a 'promise'.  If it gets too expensive, the County and the taxpayers will walk away from it, and this has happened elsewhere.  The plan and its assets must be carefully managed to ensure that they are sufficient to pay the promised benefits.  This isn't the case at ERFC which is paying high fees and has lousy investment performance.  This results in much higher costs to FCPS which has to contribute more to make up for the losses.

In 2010 FCPS paid in $35M,  last year it was $75M and next year it is $95M.  So it is real to say that pension promises and their cost are diverting significant funds away from other programs.  In addition, the value of the 'promise' that is not funded - meaning the debt of the pension plan (and of FCPS) increased from $493M in 2014 to $830M now.  That means that $337M that might have been spent on school programs will now have to be transferred to the plan.

The big concern is that taxes will have to increase to fund these pension promises and that means Fairfax will be less attractive to move to for both businesses and families.  We already see that the population of Fairfax didn't increase last year while Loudoun's population increased by 2.8%.  We have 18% vacancy rate in our office space.  Next year we will have to find $100 for the Metro...  That is why pensions are important.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics