Or elect to punt, defer, put it off for another day: whatever euphemism works, the Public School Employees Retirement System board voted to reduce the contribution rate for the school pension system from 8.22% to 5.64% this coming year resulting in savings of $349 million and lessening the blow from $11 billion to $761 million.
One of the board’s "no" votes said the action "will make it even harder to deal with the pension funding crisis next year. We can’t continue to push this problem down the road".
But it is interesting to consider the source of where the directive came from.
The state budget contained language that mandated PSERS’ board recertify the contribution rate for FY11. The board actually issued a subsequent resolution (2010-27) that stated the budget’s "…directive to recertify the employer contribution rate undermines the PSERB’s fiduciary responsibility to maintain a properly funded pension plan as required by the PSERC; and the mandated re-certification of the employer contribution rate not only fails to address the serious long-term under-funding of PSERS, but increases the unfunded liability of PSERS".
