LeRoy Collins Institute seeks to go “beyond pensions” with new report

The LeRoy Collins Institute continued to take on the notoriously sticky wicket of local government pensions on Tuesday with the release of the seventh installment of the think tank’s Tough Choices series of policy papers, titled “Beyond Pensions: Florida Local Governments and Retiree Health Benefits.”

In the new study and an accompanying webinar held Tuesday morning, the institute’s director Carol Weissert and study author David Matkin of the University of Albany spoke about the need to “get out in front” of the issue of health insurance assurances and other retirement benefits — termed “other post-employment benefits” in the study — the same way the Legislature has addressed issues with the Florida Retirement System and other structural state debt issues.

Matkin, who has written all seven of the Collins Center’s recent studies on long-term problems in Florida public policy, specifically advocated  recommendations in two areas tangling the relationship of state government, unions, and local governments. They are, first, the transparency and the level of time and effort involved in obtaining reliable numbers, and, secondly, the actuarial unsoundness of many county and local government pension programs.

Unlike the FRS, most municipal governments fund their pensions on a “pay-as-you-go” basis, meaning they appropriate money to pay benefits in each year’s  budget. The problem, according to the new academic paper, lies in projections that more than half of local governments will have to increase funding for pension-related areas of the budget by more than 2%, including a significant portion that will have to increase allocations by more than 10%.

Worse still: “They’re not even going to be paying for current services” with those budget increases, Matkin said. “Benefits covered in these projected increases are for already-completed work. What will happen as a result is they’ll create more budget problems for taxpayers that didn’t benefit from the work that was done, but have to pay the bills.”

Past installments of the series of scholarly articles have been cited during legislative debate on the issue, including last year during the nearly successful efforts of the bipartisan due of Sens. Rob Bradley and Jeremy Ring. The latest iteration of their bill will be taken up this year in the Senate, but potentially faces new opposition from the Florida League of Cities in wake of Gov. Rick Scott‘s re-election.

The LeRoy Collins Institute, founded in 1985, is housed at Florida State University in Tallahassee.