Lance Pogue to Columbia…

Maroon Eagle

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May 24, 2006
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Either high four or he is working “part time” i.e. making as much as allowed and still draw retirement…..which seems to be catching on around the state
Possibly. I just don’t know how many years he’s been an assistant coach at Madison Central and Mississippi Delta but he’s been a head coach in public schools for 20 seasons.
 

horshack.sixpack

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Oct 30, 2012
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I have a wife who will participate in PERS, if it remains solvent. My opinions on it are a complete dichotomy. 1) State employees are notoriously underpaid as compared to their private sector counterparts and 2) The way that state employees, in collusion with state entities manipulate the High 4 to make PERS payouts as expensive as possible seems wrong.

I'd love a stat on percentage of retirees who only served 4 years in whatever their highest paying position was. It's a very manipulated system, and that isn't even considering the number of retirees who turn right back around and "consult" with the place they just retired from...
 

greenbean.sixpack

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Oct 6, 2012
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Most recently he coached at JA and Heritage. He lives close to Eupora, but kids are grown and his wife is likely either retired or near retirement. He'll do great at Columbia.
 

Maroon Eagle

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May 24, 2006
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I have a wife who will participate in PERS, if it remains solvent. My opinions on it are a complete dichotomy. 1) State employees are notoriously underpaid as compared to their private sector counterparts and 2) The way that state employees, in collusion with state entities manipulate the High 4 to make PERS payouts as expensive as possible seems wrong.

I'd love a stat on percentage of retirees who only served 4 years in whatever their highest paying position was. It's a very manipulated system, and that isn't even considering the number of retirees who turn right back around and "consult" with the place they just retired from...

K-12, IHL, and juco employees are among those who fall under that bolded section if only because many of them get more consistent pay raises than a lot of state agency folks. And even then, the education sector isn’t generally paid well at all.

I suspect there will be fewer consulting retirees as the number of folks who have to be 60 or work 30 years to retire increases.

Columbia is also set to win right away, and only lost Bilderback because his wife is the HC of ULM WBB team.

True.

Bilderback coached the Wildcats to the state championship game this past season and Columbia won the title in 2021.
 

johnson86-1

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Aug 22, 2012
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I have a wife who will participate in PERS, if it remains solvent. My opinions on it are a complete dichotomy. 1) State employees are notoriously underpaid as compared to their private sector counterparts and 2) The way that state employees, in collusion with state entities manipulate the High 4 to make PERS payouts as expensive as possible seems wrong.

I'd love a stat on percentage of retirees who only served 4 years in whatever their highest paying position was. It's a very manipulated system, and that isn't even considering the number of retirees who turn right back around and "consult" with the place they just retired from...
Well, depending on your definition of solvent/insolvent, it's already insolvent and has $25B of obligations it doesn't have assets or projected assets to pay for.

I haven't seen stats on when it's actually going to run out of cash to pay current liabilities.

I wish they would just stick current PERS obligations in a bucket and offer current workers the option to continue in PERS, and then figure out a reasonable payment schedule that made sure every participant at least got the amount of benefits that could be paid with the amount of money put into the system on their behalf. So workers that worked 30 years with normal salary progression could probably get more or less the full benefit, maybe less the 3%. If you gamed the system, your guaranteed minimum would be a lot less than your "promised" amount. Do a $12B bond issuance at the state level (if that's possible; it may not be, in which case all the more reason to figure out who is going to get screwed how now rather than let it get worse) and spread that out to incentivize people settling their obligations for something between the amount the contributions on their behalf could pay and the amount they were "promised".
 

Maroon Eagle

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Well, depending on your definition of solvent/insolvent, it's already insolvent and has $25B of obligations it doesn't have assets or projected assets to pay for.

It does have the assets for the next 30 years.

But it needs more to get to the gold standard of 70 years…

 

johnson86-1

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Aug 22, 2012
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It does have the assets for the next 30 years.

But it needs more to get to the gold standard of 70 years…

Well, I can get all of my assets out of Mississippi over the next 30 years. So I guess I don't care as much.**

Of course we're going to kick the can down the road and leave it as a problem for other people if it's thirty years down the road before it hits the fan, but still, I wish they would go ahead and address it. The employees retiring in 30 years will have grossly over contributed to their retirement if you buy the fiction that the employer is putting in 17.5% or whatever it is now on their behalf and they will be the ones facing a haircut. The haircut should be much smaller and spread out over many more people rather than waiting until it has to fall heavily on a few people in 30 years.

Same as with social security. Even now, when we have waited until more or less the last second when you're talking about government welfare/insurance programs, we could probably push the day of reckoning out a while and make it a much smaller issue by going to chained CPI for growing benefits and also taxing 100% of social security benefits.
 
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Maroon Eagle

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Well, I can get all of my assets out of Mississippi over the next 30 years. So I guess I don't care as much.**

What’s likely going to happen will be yet another retirement tier created.

Unfortunately that’s going to mean that there will be fewer folks around who have the institutional knowledge.

PERS employers are also speeding up privatization of some of their areas to save money.
 

johnson86-1

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Aug 22, 2012
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What’s likely going to happen will be yet another retirement tier created.

Unfortunately that’s going to mean that there will be fewer folks around who have the institutional knowledge.

PERS employers are also speeding up privatization of some of their areas to save money.
That's why it's so stupid that they keep trying to address past obligations by adding costs to current employees. People on the PERS board should have been screaming for the past ten years to make funding obligations actuarially based and to do something to address prior unfunded obligations. But of course everyone involved was thinking they'd get all their money out of PERS before the **** hit the fan, so nobody wanted to rock the boat.
 
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Maroon Eagle

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That's why it's so stupid that they keep trying to address past obligations by adding costs to current employees. People on the PERS board should have been screaming for the past ten years to make funding obligations actuarially based and to do something to address prior unfunded obligations. But of course everyone involved was thinking they'd get all their money out of PERS before the **** hit the fan, so nobody wanted to rock the boat.
They have been screaming about the unfunded obligations.

Legislators don’t take the PERS board seriously so PERS has to get the attention of the agencies so that they scream at the legislature.

Tater Tot wants no state income taxes and while I’m no accountant I find it difficult to see that happening when considering the PERS obligations.
 

RockyDog

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Jan 2, 2023
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Tater tot needs to drowned that idea in ketchup. At times, he’s an idoit.
All the time he’s an idiot.

I don’t see a problem with kicking the can down the road. I don’t see how MS state government survives as it is for another 50 years. Tate and the legislature are trying their damndest to run off everybody. In many agencies you have people doing the work of 2 people and getting paid 25-50% less than their equivalent in the private sector.

God bless anyone that puts 30 years in these days. Once the last of the 25 year crowd is gone, state offices are in a world of trouble
 

johnson86-1

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Aug 22, 2012
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They have been screaming about the unfunded obligations.

Legislators don’t take the PERS board seriously so PERS has to get the attention of the agencies so that they scream at the legislature.
Have they actually been encouraging participants to advocate for reform though? That's an honest question.

I was assuming they were ok with the former PERS executive director telling participants not to worry about pushing for reform because ultimately taxpayers are on the hook for obligations. This was probably 2016'ish, maybe 2017'ish? There was some talk about addressing PERS because the unfunded liability had ballooned to about $15B. The only chance in hell of PERS being addressed while the problem was manageable would have required PERS leadership to actually be leaders and tell their participants that they were going to create a massive problem for the state and the PERS recipients if they didn't reform. INstead, she was like, 17 it. 17 future taxpayers and 17 future PERS participants. I'll have got mine before the **** hits the fan.

That's why I'm a big fan of taking some pain now rather than kicking the can down the road. The people that deserve haircuts are retiring right now (or are already retired). They were the ones that had the opportunity to advocate for actuarial funding when the pain would have been relatively minor. Instead, they are going to make off like bandits and leave future taxpayers and PERS participants who did realistically have their salary reduced to reflect adequate PERS contributions to fight over who is going to take the most pain to pay for prior misdeeds.

Tater Tot wants no state income taxes and while I’m no accountant I find it difficult to see that happening when considering the PERS obligations.
I think our politicians have believe the political reality is that nothing is going to be done until it is a crisis, and they just need to do the best they can to position the state for when it's actually a crisis. I think their belief is probably accurate, mainly because any reasonable fix would require litigation that is the center of attention for the country. I don't think even the most effective leader could convince other politicians to take political heat for a fix that would then have to go through litigation that would be the center of focus for the whole country, because it would have huge implications for other states with unsustainable pensions like Illinois, New Jersey, and Kentucky (just going off memory as to the states in the worst shape).
 

Maroon Eagle

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Have they actually been encouraging participants to advocate for reform though? That's an honest question.

My perception (recent PERS retiree here) is that they have but an issue is distrust between the state employee rank and file and legislators who have their own SLRP retirement fund.

My thought is that the distrust from the state employee end doesn’t make complete sense because the last thing legislators and the executive branch want to do is to stir up PERS— with so many retirees one can think of it as a third rail.

I was assuming they were ok with the former PERS executive director telling participants not to worry about pushing for reform because ultimately taxpayers are on the hook for obligations. This was probably 2016'ish, maybe 2017'ish? There was some talk about addressing PERS because the unfunded liability had ballooned to about $15B. The only chance in hell of PERS being addressed while the problem was manageable would have required PERS leadership to actually be leaders and tell their participants that they were going to create a massive problem for the state and the PERS recipients if they didn't reform. INstead, she was like, 17 it. 17 future taxpayers and 17 future PERS participants. I'll have got mine before the **** hits the fan.

The PERS board is made up of largely of (maybe all? geez, I need coffee) current public employees. When the PERS board makes recommendations or votes for funding changes, public entities automatically know.

My perception has been that the state has been trying to hide the issue (why else would Tater campaign for no state income tax?) and had their hand forced. The PERS Board move was what I consider a calculated sacrifice: make an action that causes the legislature to react and make them be responsible adults.


That's why I'm a big fan of taking some pain now rather than kicking the can down the road. The people that deserve haircuts are retiring right now (or are already retired). They were the ones that had the opportunity to advocate for actuarial funding when the pain would have been relatively minor. Instead, they are going to make off like bandits and leave future taxpayers and PERS participants who did realistically have their salary reduced to reflect adequate PERS contributions to fight over who is going to take the most pain to pay for prior misdeeds.

Communication isn't a one way street. When your state legislature and executive branch at times outwardly resembles for the most part ostriches burying their heads in sand, sometimes you've got to show them the light.

I think our politicians have believe the political reality is that nothing is going to be done until it is a crisis, and they just need to do the best they can to position the state for when it's actually a crisis. I think their belief is probably accurate, mainly because any reasonable fix would require litigation that is the center of attention for the country. I don't think even the most effective leader could convince other politicians to take political heat for a fix that would then have to go through litigation that would be the center of focus for the whole country, because it would have huge implications for other states with unsustainable pensions like Illinois, New Jersey, and Kentucky (just going off memory as to the states in the worst shape).

I agree with the first part of your clause. I think the PERS board is saying there doesn’t have to be a crisis so go ahead and do some work now for proper maintenance so it doesn’t get to an Illinois Situation.
 

johnson86-1

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Aug 22, 2012
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My perception (recent PERS retiree here) is that they have but an issue is distrust between the state employee rank and file and legislators who have their own SLRP retirement fund.

My thought is that the distrust from the state employee end doesn’t make complete sense because the last thing legislators and the executive branch want to do is to stir up PERS— with so many retirees one can think of it as a third rail.

Yea, I think the "distrust" is just that the legislators are the ones that can try to spread the pain out. The real conflict is between (1) retirees and soon to be retirees and (2) current younger workers. There is also some conflict between younger/future taxpayers and older taxpayers. The pain is going to be felt by those four groups in some measure. It looks like it's all going to be split between future taxpayers and current younger workers. WHich sucks because they're also probably going to be the ones that take the pain from social security and medicare.



The PERS board is made up of largely of (maybe all? geez, I need coffee) current public employees. When the PERS board makes recommendations or votes for funding changes, public entities automatically know.

My perception has been that the state has been trying to hide the issue (why else would Tater campaign for no state income tax?) and had their hand forced. The PERS Board move was what I consider a calculated sacrifice: make an action that causes the legislature to react and make them be responsible adults.




Communication isn't a one way street. When your state legislature and executive branch at times outwardly resembles for the most part ostriches burying their heads in sand, sometimes you've got to show them the light.



I agree with the first part of your clause. I think the PERS board is saying there doesn’t have to be a crisis so go ahead and do some work now for proper maintenance so it doesn’t get to an Illinois Situation.
Well, PERS is at least keeping the pain somewehat present rather than pretending it away and that's to their credit I guess. They've still pretended the problem away enough that the problem has ballooned from $15B to $25B when returns have been pretty good.

It would be nice if they actually advocated for fixing the system, but maybe they feel like that isn't their role (maybe it explicitly isn't; they may only be charged with overseeing the investments and determining the employer match needed although they've obviously dropped the ball on that).
 
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