Rose Fellow Doug Johnson on City Pensions

A May 25th article in the Pasadena Star-News quoted Rose Institute Fellow Douglas Johnson discussing pension plans for public employees in Monrovia. Titled “Group wants to abolish property tax in Monrovia and cut off funding for city employee pensions”, the article quotes Johnson explaining the current pension plan and contrasting it with pension plans in the private sector. 

According to the article, Johnson says that “most city retirement funds do not require any contributions from employees, unlike pension plans in the private sector.” Johnson says that “ultimately, it really comes down to very powerful public employee unions and city councils that aren’t doing the math.” Johnson does note that “cities are becoming increasingly wary of paying for generous benefit packages as budgets tighten all over the state,” however  “reducing pension costs has been an uphill battle so far.” He concludes by noting that while “its very easy to grant new benefits…it’s close to impossible to reduce them once you’ve granted them.”

Claremont McKenna trivia: Rose Fellow Douglas Johnson and Monrovia City Manager Scott Ochoa (also quoted in the article) attended CMC together.

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