Every time I post a pension story praising one municipality for accomplishing some step towards reform, I receive a flurry of emails berating me. Accused of having the wool pulled over my eyes being gullible, or just ignorant; I’ll admit that I haven’t been able to adequately defend the posts of praise.

More often than not, people take issue with my support of two-tiered pensions solutions. Claiming that they don’t do anything to address actual issues facing our State’s pension system, two-tiered systems seem to be substandard solutions.

While I agree that the current problems will continue to plague government at every level due to promises made in the past, these problems will only become worse if steps are not taken to reduce the number of people who profit from such a broken system. Hence, a two-tier system is the first step.

This article from The Press Democrat provides an excellent analysis of the challenges Santa Rosa has faced with its pension system.


City and county officials struggling to contain exploding costs of public pensions are finding themselves backed into a corner.


Because the pension promises they made to most current employees cannot be broken, local government officials can reduce pension costs only by offering less generous retirement plans to new workers.City and county officials struggling to contain exploding costs of public pensions are finding themselves backed into a corner.


Because the pension promises they made to most current employees cannot be broken, local government officials can reduce pension costs only by offering less generous retirement plans to new workers.

Read the full article here.