NEW JERSEY COPS ■ MARCH 2013
PENSION AND BENEFITS REPORT 31
What happened in Vegas?
A few weeks ago, I attended the 27th Annual
Police, Fire, EMS, and Municipal Employee Pension & Benefits Seminar sponsored by the
National Association of Police Officers (NAPO) in
Las Vegas. You can stop rolling your eyes; I already
got that look from my wife when I told her I was
attending. I’ll give you the same answer I gave
her: “I don’t pick the venues, I just go where I’m
Pat
Colligan told and work hard when I get there.” Somehow
I don’t think Fargo, North Dakota would have
attracted the same amount of public employees
as Las Vegas did. Trust me, it was all work and no play out there.
So, what happened in Vegas? One of the things I learned is
that most public pension systems retain two actuaries to evaluate their systems. Obviously, one is primary, and the other provides an independent evaluation of the first. I hope nobody is
shocked to learn that
New Jersey does not
Members may be eligible to purchase prescribe to that wellup to 10 years of public employment
accepted actuarial pracfrom any state, county, municipality,
tice. If you didn’t read it
school district or public agency in
in NJ Cops Magazine a
another state provided the service
couple of months ago,
rendered would have been eligible for
the NJ State PBA has
membership in a New Jersey adminretained its own actuary
istered retirement system.
to provide an independUpcoming NJSPBA Pension ent assessment of the
PFRS system. The state’s
Seminars
primary actuary (Buck
Book one today with our automated
Associates) has been
reservation system. Log on to
providing actuarial servwww.njspba.com and click on the
“Pensions” tab.
ices for some 70 years.
You might think that
March 19
was a typo, so let me say
3:30 and 6 p.m.
it another way; seven
Atlantic City Moose Lodge
decades! I’m not insinu3900 West End Avenue. Atlantic City ating anything, but
Buck Associates has
March 26
found themselves in
1:30 p.m.
some interesting litigation both nationally and
North Bergen Police
Sub-Station
internationally over the
6100 Tonnelle Avenue, North Bergen years. Back in 1995,
Buck
Consultants
March 27
backed Christine Todd
10 a.m.
Whitman’s plan to slash
NJSPBA Offices
the pension funding by
158 Main St, Woodbridge, NJ 08905 about 5 billion bucks
over five years. That’s
April 2
“Billion,” with a “B.”
1 p.m.
Their senior actuary
Secaucus Public Library
1379 Paterson Plank Road, Secaucus felt the pension system
wouldn’t have a shortfall. As if that bit of
April 16
5:30 p.m.
financial foresight wasn’t enough, they eventuBest Western, Burlington Inn
ally admitted that they
2020 Route 541, Westampton
PFRS TIP OF THE MONTH
overestimated the potential benefits of that plan to taxpayers by
more than $500 million. I guess after 50 years of marriage at the
time, petty little mistakes like $5.5 billion can be overlooked. I’d
have to guess that if one of us made a $5.5 billion dollar mistake
at work we might have gotten at least a day or two off; Buck was
rewarded with another 20 years worth of work from the Division. Hopefully, by now, you should see my point; we need to
have someone else take a look at the books. I just wish we didn’t have to pay for it. The time has come for the state to check its
own actuary; it’s just good business and a very common practice in other public sector pensions.
As far as our own actuary, he is now off and running. The
Division provided all of the documents required to perform the
actuarial study several weeks ago. We are expecting a preliminary report shortly and a complete report in about six months
or so, barring any unforeseen circumstances. Quite frankly, our
actuary could provide funding levels similar to Buck, but we
would have been remiss if we never checked their figures and
assumptions. We have a governor publicly painting a pension
doomsday scenario on one hand, and then handing a $364 million dollar “pension savings” check back to our employers with
the other. (And I’ve heard he might be proposing another one!.)
I’ve never been known for my math skills, but that doesn’t really make too much sense to me.
That’s it for this month. I have some more suggestions for our
pension system, ͼ