Taxes set for pension fund may avert takeover
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Pittsburgh's pension fund is 33 percent funded, but city Controller Michael Lamb said it has closer to 57 percent of the funds it needs when city council's December pension bailout legislation is factored in.
At the city's Comprehensive Municipal Pension Trust Fund quarterly meeting Thursday, the city's pension advisers reported the fund had a balance of $333.56 million at the end of March, which is against roughly $1 billion in long-term liabilities owed to retirees and current employees. To avoid state takeover, the city has to prove it has at least $500 million in the fund.
Mr. Lamb, a pension board member, made a presentation showing that council's bill dedicating a portion of parking taxes over 31 years to the fund would generate a present value of $238.6 million, which should vault the fund to $572 million. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's budget director Scott Kunka was not ready to confirm that number, saying it is subject to further study.
A final determination on the fund's status is not due to the state until September.
Fellow pension board member Joseph King, the head of the city firefighters union, pressed Mr. Kunka to get behind Mr. Lamb's figures to present a united front to the state's Public Employee Retirement Commission.
"I want to get everything in order here, and we all have to stick behind it. Everybody agrees that we cannot afford a state takeover. We just can't do it. And if there's something we need to shuffle around between now and Sept. 1, then damn it, we need to do it," he said.
Mr. Ravenstahl responded to Mr. King's concerns by saying, "We've started the process to present those numbers, and we will present them when asked. ... We are doing everything we would normally do."
A look at the fund's performance by managers at Mercer Investment Consulting showed the fund's market value treaded water in the first three months of the year, growing 1.9 percent. Mercer is getting out of the municipal pension business, so the pension board voted to replace the firm with Marquette Associates of Chicago.
First Published May 13, 2011 12:00 am
