The Public Pension Situation in Memphis

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· The Mayor or his designee
· The comptroller
· 5 employees with at least 10 years of service
· 1 citizen member
· 1 retiree of the plan
· 1 member of the City Council, non voting
· Director of personnel, ex officio member, non voting
The important points here are two facts.
1) The pension promises are full faith and credit promises backed up by the taxing authority of your elected officials regardless of our ability to pay.
2) This whole process needs to be opened up with more public members (read taxpayers) on the pension board as it is their taxes that guarantee these promised pensions. The employees do contribute but so do the taxpayers and the guarantee is from the taxpayers.
Unless we have a miraculous market recovery, we will see huge pension increases in contributions from the taxpayers. We need to reform this system so that future new employees have a defined contribution plan (like a 401k) rather than a defined benefit plan. This is what taxpayers in the “for profit” world have and this is what public public employees should have.
- joe saino (joe.saino@gmail.com)