Take Aways. TPPF. Pension Cost Burdens on Texas Cities & Counties.

Texas Public Policy Foundation put out an October 2016 Policy Perspective entitled, “Pension Cost Burdens on Texas Cities and Counties “

The word “burden” should be our tipoff that this isn’t going to be rosy glasses, unicorns and butterflies. Leave happy-go-lucky to recharge and let’s go find the kernels of info:

TPPF cost burden analysis take aways:

• Pensions eat up a lot of local money. 
• More costs, the more the risk for taxpayers & beneficiaries
• Defined Benefit System is like the boyfriend who over-promises and over-delivers, but instead of thinking you hit the boyfriend jackpot, TPPF wants you to dump him.
• Multi-employer plans are not as burdened as single employer plans, and by single employer plans, like Houston
• Texas local government pensions are doing better than other megastates, like California

TPPF Recommendations:

• Restoration of local control of state- governed pension plans
• Legislators should focus on fixing the single employer plans of the big cities, see recommendation #1, rinse and repeat
• Cities and counties should migrate to defined contribution systems.