⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Conclusions 1
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CL1 Page 14Media reports on public employee retirement benefits have admittedly been colored by political considerations, but there are also broad areas of agreement. In 2011, the Little Hoover Commission summarized its view of the pension crisis in an often-quoted publication: 14 California’s pension plans are dangerously underfunded, the result of overly generous benefit promises, wishful thinking and an unwillingness to plan prudently. Likewise, Leigh Snell, the Federal Relations Director for the National Council on Teacher Retirement, in an article that cautioned against over dramatization of pension issues, noted: If plan participants demand retroactive benefits that have not been adequately funded, or if employers fail to make their annual required contributions as agreed, then it is virtually inevitable that the plan’s fiscal stability will become unbalanced over time. The Grand Jury found that fixing public retirement benefits should be a non-partisan matter, since it is in every citizen’s interest that public employees earn a retirement income adequate for their future needs and to which they sufficiently contribute while employed. There is a fairness issue as well. Many Napa County employees’ retirement income security is totally dependent on the benefits earned from the County since they are not eligible to participate in Social Security. The Grand Jury found that the County has been collegial in proactively working with its employee bargaining units, CalPERS and citizens to make positive changes to its retirement benefit programs. For the last eight years, the County has made a series of prudent decisions about its retirement benefits that have led to an increasingly funded, affordable and more stable retirement benefit status. Public officials have a responsibility to learn from past mistakes and be vigilant in the management of all County assets. In Napa County, there is strong evidence that this has been the case, and as it pertains to public employee retirement benefits, the County has shown very good stewardship.
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Napa County Board of Supervisors
Elected County Office