Funding for public employees’ retirement systems is unsustainable at current levels at both the State and local levels.   States, cities and counties are faced with future pension costs that cannot be met without cutting essential services, such as fire and police, or raising taxes or both.  In some cases, the pension liability threatens public entities with bankruptcy and in fact, the city of Vallejo has already declared bankruptcy.  The state of California and all cities and counties are aware of the issue but little action is being taken.   The City of Sausalito’s pension fund is managed by CALPERS and the forecast is that Sausalito will be faced with substantially increased payments to the CALPERS system in a couple years despite the CALPERS “smoothing” formula to spread the costs over future years.   What is the City doing to mitigate these expenses?  SEA believes that Sausalito should plan now to ensure our town’s long-term financial health.

Links for further information on pension funding:

LA Times Article

Barron’s  Article