a program that has exposed taxpayers to financial risk for too long. ...more

November 22, 2009

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is trying to develop a nationwide investigation with his counterparts in 35 other states to root out what he calls corruption and abuse of public workers' pension funds nationwide, a state official said. ...more

May 2, 2009

The city of Avon Park borrowed from itself, and this has the city's auditor concerned. ...more

March 25, 2009

Florida's pension fund for state employees has plummeted almost $46 billion over the past year, but the fund's managers say they're staying the course. ...more

December 10, 2008

Florida's public employee pension plan has lost more than a quarter of its peak value, but Gov. Charlie Crist and other officials Monday said the fund is built for the long haul and there's no need to panic. ...more

November 17, 2008

After hearing the country's financial system characterized by words such as "crisis" and "disaster" over the past several weeks, I wasn't surprised to find that my inbox was clogged with questions. Many people are looking for ways to save money. Others want to know where to put the money they've already saved. And nearly everyone wants some reassurance that the decisions they're making - whether they're about credit, their homes, or investing - are the right ones. ...more

October 12, 2008

Recently, the county commission decided to dismiss action on a proposed impact fee stimulus package. Charitably, it was not a good policy. A number of factors clearly illustrated that it would have jeopardized the local economy rather than stimulated it. That concept energized the following brief history of how such concepts affected working people in this country. Over a hundred years ago, President Teddy Roosevelt busted the robber barons. They had a stranglehold on workingmen. They dictated the price they paid for labor. Men worked 12 hour days, seven days a week for low wages with no vacations or sick leave. They worked till they dropped, 365 days a year. In the next 100 years, through bloody wars, goon squads and sheer persistence, working conditions improved. The '30s and '40s were pivotal decades in that slow process of working people earning a "piece of the pie," but they had to struggle to maintain the progress so bitterly fought for. The idea of "helping" the developers and construction industry "stimulate" the economy triggered recall of that history. Unions were formed to help workers collectively demand and earn better wages and work conditions. They gained those rights, but had to fight to keep them. In the '50s, the U.S. Congress passed laws to correct a flaw "discovered" in the wages and pension package. ...more

May 2, 2008

I have missed a number of commission sessions, but I do read the papers and watch television for news of local and state issues. One of them is the issue of state officials using pension funds for questionable investments. A short time before Enron went under, along with $7 trillion of the national market, the state administration bought $300 million of Enron stock with pension funds of the teachers retirement fund and $300 million from the firemen and police funds. They became worthless. Nothing happened; it was just a blip on the assets and liability charts. Just recently, it came to light that administration had also bought risky stock with other portfolio funds that affected local governments. When a rush to withdraw half of those portfolio funds occurred, the state closed those funds to preclude further erosion of that portfolio. As I understand it, Mr. Stepanovich, a significant member of that committee, has resigned. The question remains: Who will be held accountable for making those risky investments? ...more

December 22, 2007

A Bloomberg article recently published in many Florida outlets used broad generalities, gross overstatements and outdated information to report on the Florida Retirement System (FRS) pension fund. ...more

December 14, 2007

Auditors investigating last month's run on an investment fund for local governments need to scrutinize Florida's $137 billion pension fund as well, the fund's top administrator said Wednesday. ...more

December 13, 2007