Officials: City's pension fund nearly $60m in the red

The city’s pension fund needs to pay about 900 retirees, but over the next 30 years, it’s expected to be nearly $60 million in the red.

City leaders held what they called a "pension summit" Tuesday to lay out the problem and solicit ideas on how to fix it.

The city’s pension fund has not been in positive territory since 2003. The city blames the dot com bust and 2008 recession for the deficit. New hires and growing salaries also add to it, they said.

For fiscal year 2012, the city was poised to be $58.6 million short of what it needs to pay its pension recipients. Many retirees are contractually obligated to receive their pension through union negotiation.

Mayor Miro Weinberger, D-Burlington, asked for input on how to strengthen the pension system with a balanced budget. He emphasized the pension problem does not reflect on employees.

"Equity amongst various city employees has been in some sense eroded," he said. "The topic of how we fix the system or address these challenges in the system has been a continuous negotiation in every negotiation round since 2006."

Union representatives and city employees attended the meeting.

The state firefighter’s union took to Twitter, telling the mayor, "Congregational church would not still be standing if not for the work of @Btvfire professional FD & #IAFF L3044 members #btv."

City leaders said they hoped to get input from neighbors about how to move forward with the pension problem.


Source: MSNBC