Arizona Pension Estimates Produce Great Press Coverage for TUA

By on August 8, 2012   /   Arizona, Latest, Pension Reform  

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Last week, Taxpayers United of America (TUA) released the top pension amounts for Arizona government employees. TUA President Jim Tobin held press conferences in Phoenix and Tucson.
TUA received the following great press coverage:

Of particular note was the story from KGUN-TV 9. To see video of the story, click on the image below:

Additional press coverage from the Goldwater Institute and AZ-TV7 is expected in the future.

Arizona is the 16th state on TUA’s 50-state-tour focused on the number one budgetary problem in the US: government pension funding. TUA will be revealing more states’ pension amounts across the nation, including those of Colorado later this month.
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Inside Tucson Business | Group says city employees due millions in pension payouts

By on August 7, 2012   /   Arizona Press, Press  
Findings from TUA’s pension project on Tucson, Arizona, are featured in this article from Inside Tucson Business.
A taxpayer watchdog group in Illinois has released a study saying Tucson government retirees could receive millions of dollars in lifetime pension payouts.
Taxpayers United of America, a libertarian leaning but politically non-affiliated advocacy group, put together an analysis of the city’s highest-paid pensioners and their estimated lifetime retirement payouts.
According to the group’s analysis, the retirees’ annual pensions range from $113,979 to $67,355. All told, the retirees receive $3.9 million per year in pension payments.
“These people are being paid an astronomical amount of money for 30 to 40 years to do absolutely nothing,” said Jim Tobin, founder and president of Taxpayers United of America.
Tobin said the group advocates having all new government hires on 401(k) and Social Security instead of the traditional publically funded pension plans that many government employees are on.
The group also advocates for government employees to pay for 50 percent of their health premiums.
“They defend pensions by saying they deserve it, but it doesn’t happen in the private sector anymore,” Tobin said.
According to the group’s calculations, many of the city retirees will earn as much as $3.4 million in pension payments. They base the figure on a retirement age of 55 and assume the pension payments will extend for 30 years.
City employees are only eligible for early retirement at age 55 if they have at least 20 years service.
The city’s Tucson Supplemental Retirement System Pension Fund has a budget for the current fiscal year of $68.1 million.
According to a 2011 guide to the pension fund, two-thirds of the pre-investment proceeds funding comes from city contributions. Employee contributions make up the remainder.
City employees are required to contribute at five percent of their gross wages.
Tobin called pension systems “immoral” and said that they were growing increasingly unsustainable.
“That’s the worst part about it,” he said. “We’re forced to pay their million-dollar pensions.”
Copies of the reports are online at www.taxpayersunitedofamerica.org.
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KGUN-TV 9 | Big government pensions brought into question [VIDEO]

By on August 2, 2012   /   Arizona Press, Press  

Findings from TUA’s pension project on Tucson, Arizona, are featured in this story from KGUN-TV 9. To see video of the story, click on the image below.
TUCSON (KGUN9- TV) – It’s costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year across Pima County and the City  of Tucson, and one group says it’s gone too far.  They’re talking about big pensions for government workers.  It’s at the center of the U.S Postal Service’s financial crisis, and the issue that crippled the state of Wisconsin and led to the governor’s recall election.
A group called Taxpayers United of America (TUA) is now traveling the country to spread the word on pensions, and how much taxpayers are putting in.
Jim Tobin with TUA says the system needs to change.
“it’s just tearing the country apart and if it doesn’t change, it will.  It will tear the country apart,” he sad, “Taxpayers who make an average forty-thousand dollars a year in the Tucson area are subsidizing these people for up to thirty years or more to do absolutely nothing.”
9 On Your Side dug deeper into “double-dipping” in February, finding out Tucson city manager and former police chief Richard Miranda takes in more than $300 thousand a year with his police retirement pension and current salary.
Others on TUA’s list of top pensions in Pima County earn as much as $125 thousand a year.  If they retire at age 60, it could mean millions of dollars.
9 On Your Side wanted to know how this is justified.  Pima County supervisor Richard Elias says competitive pension make up for salaries that pay less in the private sector.  He added the top name on the TUA’s list was the county’s chief forensic scientist… a doctor who gave 30 years to public service.
“I would say that many more of our employees are just like them and retire with thirty-thousand dollar salaries than that list of names that you have there,” he said, “Those are the exceptions rather than the rule.”
According to a 2009 Bureau of Labor Statistics study, government and private sector job salaries on average are similar, with local government employees earning an average of $2 thousand less, but factoring Federal and state workers, it averages about $2 thousand more.

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