The City’s Annual Required Contributions to its two pension funds have increased 56% ($475 million) since Eric Garcetti was elected mayor, from $848 million to $1.32 billion for the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1, 2020. […]

Yet we know very little about the City’s two pension plans, the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System (“LACERS”) and the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions (“LAFPP”). This is because Mayor Eric Garcetti and former City Council President Herb Wesson buried the recommendation of the LA 2020 Commission to establish an independent pension commission to review and analyze the two pension plans and develop recommendations to make the plans sustainable. This was due to the opposition to increased transparency by the campaign funding leaders of the City’s public sector unions.

However, on Monday, April 27, Mayor Garcetti told Larry Mantle, the host of Air Talk on KPCC (89.3 FM), that he is considering the establishment of a pension commission… The unfunded pension liability of almost $9 billion is the City’s largest financial obligation. It is the equivalent of high cost debt. The Annual Required Contributions are eating the City’s lunch, becoming an increasing portion of its budget. We need transparency and solutions. We cannot afford to continue to kick the pension plan obligations down our lunar cratered streets. We need an independent pension commission to kickstart pension reform.”

Read the rest of the article at City Watch. 

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This article republishes selections from “LA’s Pension Contributions are Ballooning: The Public Has a Right to Know” an article by Jack Humphreville for City Watch, 4/27/2020.