pensions. and the vermont state employees association voted to increase pension contribution by 1.3% over the next five years. in addition to obtaining confessions, governor shumlin also did something else. he opposed additional cuts across state agencies as well as as well as facing additional revenue through select surcharges and assessments. in other words, he developed a plan to spread out and shared sacrifice is across state and we should know that those employees went along with it because they too wanted to strengthen their own state's fiscal situation. governor walker took a very different approach in wisconsin. he faced a projected shortfall of 137 million in the current fiscal year within days of the governors announcing budget proposal to address the shortfall, labor leaders in wisconsin agreed to accept all of the financial demands. they agree to increase women twentyfold and agree to double their share of the health insurance premiums. governor walker did not accept these concessio

pensions. the vermont state common pleas association voted to increase pension contribution by 1.3% over the next five years. in addition to obtaining confessions, government shumlin also did something else. he propose spreading additional cuts are very seen each of these as well as raising additional revenues for elect surcharges. another was come he developed a plan to spread out and share sacrifices across the state and we should note those employees went along with it because they wanted to strengthen their situation. he faced a projected shortfall of up to 187 in the current fiscal year, within days of announcing the budget proposal to address the shortfall, labor leaders and wisconsin agree to accept both the financial demands. the agree to increase contributions more than 20 fold in the agree to double their share of the health insurance premiums. governor walker did not accept these. instead committee would further by attempting to strip government employees have collective bargaining r

package would limit pension spiking. practice of boosting pension benefits with big raise in the last year before worker retire retires. instead pension would be based on worker 3 year average salary and would not include over time or unused vacation time pro-postal would also ban cash payment to raise pension benefits. and paying benefits to workers who have been convicted of employment related felony. lookly reference to bell city manager robert and 7 other bell city officials accused of public corruption. critic say whale brown proposal are a good first step, they don't good far enough. >> governor plan to solve the pension crisis by eliminating the flagrant abuses is just like his plan to solve the budget crisis by taking away bureaucrat cell phones. it's a physician start but it doesn't solve 200 billion dollar problem. >>reporter: but governor brown did say other propose rals still being worked on including a cap on benefits. limits on employee returning to government work after they retire and move toward requirin

it's a question of pensions and all of the mechanics of how you manage pensions and question of health care and how you manage health care for them. my understanding is we have hundreds of billions of dollars of unfunded liability on health care. i don't know how many billions or tens of billions the unfunded liability son pensions. i don't know what our earnings assumption is. it's probably not very realistic. so the question is, you are working on an effort to to do this. jeff got slaughtered by the establishment when he tried to do it. what is different than what you're trying to do? is it greater awareness. anything the citizens of the city can do to help you get this over the hump? you got the full scope of employees. are we dealing with fire and police as well as bus drivers, people in parks and rec? can you put a little bit of flesh on the bones on what you intend to do with pensions and how the public can help you get there. >> let me just say that obviously pension reform is one of the biggest topics in city hall right now and something i think we're all focused on, not only o

one is pensions. the problems with both cities public pension funds. if anything, oakland's problem seems the more urgent in that you have a very large payment due in a few months that relates really to previous pension liabilities that have gotten kicked down the road quite a long time ago. how are you going to deal with it? >> what they are talking about is a police retirement fund that was founded in the 1950's, and apparently, it ran out of money within the decade, and they tried to fix it in the late 1950's and the late 1970's, and now, i have a $43 million payment coming down the road. i did recommend a compromise, that we bond out on some of the excess equity we have now, and start paying it down. so i am recommending a combination. we are in the middle of the worst recession of our lifetime. just paid at all of is not acceptable. there is no way you could make a $90 million cut this year to just pay. we actually did long-term studies that it is cheaper for the cities to bond off and make some annual payments than it would be to just start payin

pensions. so my question to you, governor walker, a steeply the sufficient transparency and disclosure with public sector pensions today? >> i think about the state and local level as well there needs to be more transparent the. one of the things we're most proud about that we balance the $3.6 billion budget for two years ago with the largest deficit in state history. in my budget, i presented the beginning of state legislature to reduce the structural deficit by more than 2000000000.90% reduction pointed out to call the present positive. but the last thing you heard anything related to a budget because we took control of what we should have been doing for years and work from both political parties. that's incredibly positive. others because that differs in many cases to the next generation. we can't do that anymore. >> i know my time is expired, but certainly those arguing about public sector pensions. you have those same pensions are underfunded and it bad. those are the optimists. does the l

not pensions. pensions are governed by a whole different set of pension accounting rules which for most public companies only require 80% funding. based upon the actuarial means. >> and that's were i came with what happened in the case of united airlines and others. my time has long expired but the fundamental question i think that will we will leave unanswered anyone can respond for the record is, isn't it true that if we don't fully funds by some way -- i'm not -- not over five but fun, that we leave the taxpayers of america on the hook should the post office not be able to pay in the future of? >> we are paying, we are fully funding, the postal service is fully funded for pensions, and overfunded for pensions, and overfunded for retiree health care benefits. all we are saying is, as i said in my statement, we are more than willing continue paying of the 7.9 billion in 2011, that 5.5, plus two plus some other billion dollars we are paying to make sure that we are fully funding the retiree health

the package would limited so-called pension spiking. practice of boosting pension benefits before a worker retires. pensions would be based on three-year average salary and not include overtime or unused vacation time. the proposal would also ban cash payments to raise ppx benefits and paying benefits to workers who have been convicted of an employment related felony a likely reference to bell city officials that have been accused of corruption. critics say it's a good first step but they don't go far enough. >> the governor's plan to solve the budget crisis it's like taking away bureaucrats cell phones. >> other proposals are still being worked on including a cap on benefits, and move toward requires employees to be responsible for part of their retirement planning. teacher unions will no doubt be giving the governor their thoughts on these proposals. >> everyone has to contribute to find a solution but it ought not be on the backs of educators who are retiring on a very modest pension. >> in less than an hour, labor department will re

>> the current pension plan in san francisco is $400 million. and the next four years is going to reach $1 billion. this city is in serious trouble and desperately trying to figure out how it can meet that demand. how did it get in is impossible situation? remember the economic crisis of 2008. the city lost $3 billion of its pension funds when the markets plummeted. most employers contributions have not gone off they remained at 7.5%. this city is paying the piper. they are going to have to try to pay 24,000 employees guaranteed pensions. and it is to increase i thousanshare by 13% and what san francisco employers are getting? most are eligible to collect 75% of their salaries when they retire. 90%, that is the police with a fire department. also, those have been hired before 2009 with more than five years on the edge of the wicked guaranteed lifetime health benefits. 100 percent,--they are guaranteed 100 percent lifetime health benefits. and the city pays 60 percent of their dependence when they retire. >>pam: california voters are backing jerr

. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the single largest expense increase has been pension expense.by 2013-2014. simply put, san francisco cannot afford to pay the pensions of the employees it already has, let alone the same program for new employees. our whole concern -- confirmed their support for pension reform, a full 2/3 of voters are in favor of changing the pension plan for new city employees moving from the guaranteed benefits model to a 401k-like defined contribution system, a change already in place at most of your own businesses. san francisco voters agree with most chamber priorities, putting jobs first, encouraging government efficiency, and investing in the city's assets. now is the time to plan for the future. it is essential that we commit to invest and upgrading the port, airport, bridges, and transit system, and continue to support seismic retrofitting of these assets that power our local and state economies. voters are increasingly looking more like chamber members every year. 70% of voters support a payroll tax exemption for five years for businesses creating new

we have a very dignified pension system. because of the way the stock markets have acted, in particular the crash in 2008, you're not prepared for the costs have risen as high as they are. of the $306 million deficit, $100 million of that has been the result of an increase in cost to our attention. that is why i am working very hard to do pension reform. i think we're getting closer and closer to negotiating a with our labor union leaders and our city family to have something before you that will really take a long-term solution to the pension costs. and make sure in the future that it doesn't eat into the general fund the way it has and the way it will. if we don't take care of it this year, in three years, the extra areas of our city will be rising to over $600 million. that will be eating into all the services that you want, the ability to have levels that we have today. a solvent city is the most important thing i can contribute. we need to make sure that we balance the budget and we have had to reform for you in a most

that is where i am working on the pension. we want to solve the budget. third thing is, i want the city to be successful. what brought you all here to san francisco? diversity, strong neighborhoods, the events that we sponsor every day, the neighborhood small businesses that we have. that is what has made us a successful city. i want the city to continue to be successful, to continue to attract the thousands of visitors that come every day to see us, be at our local shops. i want the city to be safe, solvent, and successful. that is the principle upon which i shared with the department heads, with commission directors, as we approach this daunting task as we fill in this gap. but there will be some hard decisions in front of us. there will be some programs that we are reviewing today with you that have to change the way they practice. there will be departments experiencing less in how they do their jobs, but will still be held accountable for doing the best job possible. i want to thank my colleagues from all the different departments because they are all

the pension question is something that comes up. the cost of our pension liability will cost the city, especially because of our investments in the market have come down since 2008. we are spending more of our general fund to pay our pension costs. that is a big challenge. it is a long-term problem, but it also has short-term implications. we know right away we are not going to have the enough money as we need to cover our services and pension costs as well. i support efforts to figure out short-term solutions around contributions that workers can make. it is important to work collaborative way, as much as possible with labor, organizations, to come up with solutions. we have to figure out, jobs are at stake. we have to cut positions, services. if we do not resolve the pension issue, we will have to cut services in a way that will be harmful to san franciscans. fewer options for muni, parks deteriorating, less investment in public infrastructure, if we cannot resolve these issues. the tide is rising. we need to figure out how to swi

pension costs are chief among the spirit as the mayor said, the issue of pension reform is going to be front and center for bringing our budget back into balance over the long term so that we do not have to do this year after year where we're going back to our departments and asking them to make reductions. just to put that in perspective, a $300 million budget deficit -- what does that mean for the city? next slide. within our budget, we have a $6.5 million budget, but within that budget, there are different categories of spending. a little less than half of our budget, or about $3 billion, is in the city's general fund, and that is where we pay for a lot of the services from the departments that are here tonight. our public safety departments, our human services agency and health departments. that is where our tax dollars go, and that is where we have the spending for those services. but within that $3 billion, we have a lot of restrictions. we have, as i said, our requirement to pay for pension costs, for other employee benefit costs. we have a voter-approved spending requirements.

we are legally obligated to pay our pension and benefit costs. we have voter-approved requirements that under the charter require us to spend a certain amount of money on particular types of services, and all those various requirements eat away at our flexibility within that $3 billion, and at the end of the day, we only have about $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion roughly in the neighborhood that is truly flexible, discretionary general fund that we can use to balance the budget. our $300 million deficit, from that perspective, feels much more significant. it is about 1/4 of our flexible general fund, and that is the challenge that we have to deal with and the reason we are here tonight. as i said, within our general fund, the biggest departments that make up about 75% of our flexible general fund are our core city functions -- public safety, police, sheriffs, and the fire departments. and then our core county functions, which are the human services agency and the health department. those are the departments, the parts of our city that have the bigge

over pension plans the pension plans were fine at the. end and beyond that again why why this drumbeat to say let's reduce everybody to the lowest common denominator what happened to america what about lifting people. well i think that there's also a side that is there to lift people up which is that part of the problem with public sector unions is the inefficiencies that they introduce and to the day to day processes of government and for thinking about middle class people that depend on government services on a regular basis we want those services to be efficient and effective and and worth every tax dollar the limited as a vehicle pay in the sense that it costs to send a letter from hawaii to maine is inefficient are you trying to tell me that the fact that social security has never ever in seventy years failed to write a check is inefficient or you tell me that our military is inefficient that our veterans administration socialized medicine system is in of fish. i think you're conflating two things mostly what i'm writing and i'm talk

mayor, can you share with us on the need for pension reform and the need for benefit reform? mayor lee: thank you, supervisor, for that question. i appreciate this question and the sustained question you have paid to this. the city cannot sustain its current workforce and benefits structure in light of the exponentially increasing benefit costs. we need to reform our benefit structure to provide pension and health care for employees and retirees that allow our workers to work and retire in dignity without unduly compromising important services we must provide to the public. to that end, building on the important work done by the coalition brought together, we have proposed legislation that reduces city costs of long-term and increasing cost sharing by employees in the short term. we are well into the required meet and confer process with our labor organizations. all of you on the board of supervisors will be hearing more about these details during are closed session today. we anticipates submitting the legislation we develop in this process to the board by the may 24th deadli

pension reformer call ate good first step but not enough. >> governor plan to solve the pension crisis by eliminating the flagrant abuses is just like his plan to solve the budget crisis by taking away bureaucrat cell phones. it's a nice start but doesn't soovl 200 billion dollar problem. >>reporter: but jerry brown has been governor for almost three months. governor brown panel comes on the same day the california republican party released an attack ad on you tube about his inability to compromise. >> republicans asked brown for public pension reform. brown said no. >>reporter: republicans earlier in the day wanted to set the record straight on why they say budget negotiations collapsed. they wanted more and the governor wouldn't go as far on reform as they wanted. >> became pretty obvious to me that there really wasn't a sincere desire to try to work out anything and abide. >> stanford report says we are up 500 billion upside down and take care of the retire. benefit are unsustainable. >>reporter: uic employee union say they are not happy. while they are okay with some of the proposa

we promised to upgrade to the pension in line with earnings and we increase them.we would keep the bus passes and the tv licenses and we did all those things. yes, he did mislead his electors at the election. >> queen's award winning no more torque, rally-winning pro drive and global will award winning crompton technology group are all manufacturing businesses based in danbury. they're all doing so well that they went to move into larger premises, but they also have immediate skill vacancies that they need to fill. what collectively can we do to try to ensure that people who are unemployed elsewhere in the country and to have skills now of the skills they -- >> order. i am grateful to the hon. gentleman, but we do have other members to accommodate. >> hon. friend is right to raise this issue and the reaction of the opposition shows that they're not interested in manufacturing, skills, technology, and ensuring that we expand those things. we will have to under 50,000 apprenticeships sobered this parliament the university technical colleges will make a difference and

pensioners like him look for something to do to keep active.in his case, he does concert and studio work and composes music. >> if i had to live off of my pension, then things would be pretty sad. i paid in for 40 years and i was never that poorly off, but what i get now just covers the rent on my apartment. ♪ >> conrad and his colleagues do not work for a largegeompany that can offer them support. there is no one to encourage them to take care of themselves cunha when despite their rage they have to get up and perform -- to take care of themselves. despite their age they have to get up and perform ha to take care of themselves. >> it would not be as much fun, especially not being able to play anymore. it would be terrible, enough to make you sick. now have to keep on playing until i drop. >> but not an ideal solution. a new approach is needed to work into old age. next germany's aging population, that has been our in-depth look into the demographic problems. you are watching dw-tv. please stay with us if you can. which foot was it? best make t

that allows state workers to buy time served in order to increase pensions later. so if you work 20 years and you pay for five years of air time you would get a pension for someone who served 25 years. >> a lot of the things that he said at the top of his list are common sense reforms. >> reporter: but cbs5 political analyst joe tumon says the biggest fight is yet to come. a proposed pension cap. >> no employee who retires going forward can earn more than a certain amount of money. i don't care who you are. jeff tedford of the coach of the cal bears who makes several thousand a year, everyone will make the same. >> reporter: after staying quiet for weeks state republican leaders emerged today acknowledging that pension reforms are critical to the state budget but they complain there was no compromise when they spoke with governor brown. >> there weren't budget negotiations going on because governor brown was not talking to me. >> reporter: apparently the governor wasn't doing a lot of talking. instead, the senator says he got an earful from the first lady. >> frank

brown stated customers should motbe on the hook for his pension. he will leave with $9.6 billion in pension benefits. >> a deadly shooting outside a restaurant. business owners are demanding action. a look at what led to the violence when kron 4 news returns. >>> tonight's headlines. londons seafood lambert st. louis airport is back open tonight. this is what it looked like on friday when a tornado ripped through. passengers and staff ran for safety. tonight a new threat, the mississippi river is rising above flood stage and rain is in the forecast. the state department is advising americans in syria to leave as soon as possible. they are considering sanctions. more than 300 people have been killed. >>> texas congressman ron paul is forming an exploratory committee. he finished fifth in the 2008 caucuses. he has strong backing from the tea party. haley barber said today he will not run for president. >>> we started the day with sprinkles, ended with clearer skies. details coming up in a bit. i am a sneeze whisperer. i am an allergy analyst. bermuda

pension reform plan. >> we are talking about real, significant savings for the city. the >>reporter: city could use the savings. when did the market crashed and 2008 the city lost zero billion dollars of the $17 billion in its pension fund. it lost $14 billion of the $17 in its pension fund. >> this is something that never britain get behind. >> this would increase the money contributions to the pensions, and also increase the real target for new hires. >> the to do more of a sacrifice on their part. to their credit i think there recognize these issues. they recognize the need to be partners in this negotiation. >>reporter: the mayor, and other city officials are meeting. >> i would expect that the offer would say that if this is not a done? would have more to do. >> this would be the same coalition that supposed last november's ballot. they're hoping this will lead to a consensus of the coalition could join forces with the city to promote a new pension reform proposal on that this a ballot in november. dan kerman, kron 4 news. >>pam: >>this just in to the kron 4 news

governor's proposal would limit pension spiking, boosting pensions with a big raise before a worker retires. pensions would be based on a worker's three-year average salary and not include overtime or vacation time. it would put a cap on benefits and limits on employees returning to government work after they retire. it would ban retroactive pension benefit increases and paying benefits to workers who have been convicted of employment related felonies. its reference to bell city officials who have been accused of public corruption. teachers will no doubt give their thoughts on the proposals. >> everyone has to contribute to find a solution but not ought to be on the backs of educators who are retiring on a very modest pension. >> reporter: it's an idea that hasn't been presented before, raising taxes on the wealthiest residents. in a new poll, 89% of democratic support. 60% republican support and 79% of independents backing the idea. by supporting a 1% income tax increase it could raise $2.5 billion a year. no word that the governor will consider that idea but he is taking his pension refor