nevada | Pension360

Nevada Newspaper: State Pension Needs Disability Reform

The editorial board of the Las Vegas Review-Journal called on lawmakers Tuesday to deal with the “outrageous abuses” it says are plaguing the state’s disability pension system.

From the Review-Journal:

We know the Public Employees Retirement System of Nevada provides retirement benefits to people who aren’t retired. But did you know the taxpayer-funded pension plan also provides disability benefits to former government workers who aren’t disabled?

[…]

The Review-Journal exposed the PERS disability giveaways last year in an investigation of the termination of Las Vegas police officer Jesus Arevalo. On Oct. 15, 2013, Mr. Arevalo became the first Metropolitan Police Department officer to be fired over an improper use of deadly force. In 2011, he killed Stanley Gibson, an unarmed, mentally ill Gulf War veteran who became lost while driving around an apartment complex parking lot. That tragedy, which followed a Review-Journal investigative series on police use of deadly force, led to major changes in department training, policies and oversight — and a $1.5 million settlement for Mr. Gibson’s widow.

Mr. Arevalo was on paid suspension for almost two years while termination proceedings played out. But weeks before his firing was finalized, Mr. Arevalo submitted disability retirement paperwork — for stress related to his firing and the shooting that prompted his firing. The “retirement” was approved by his immediate supervisor, a personal physician, the PERS board and the pension agency’s doctor.

Mr. Arevalo, who was 36 at the time of his firing, will collect about $2,500 per month for the rest of his life, plus cost of living increases. Over 35 years, he could collect more than $1 million.

Anyone who receives federal disability benefits or long-term disability benefits through a private insurer isn’t supposed to work. But Mr. Arevalo’s disability claim applies only to police work. He can collect his PERS disability benefits and work in another field.

Read the entire editorial here.

Photo by TaxRebate.org.uk

Unions Expect Battle Over Pension Benefits to Intensify In Wake of Election

Unions and other labor groups say they expect the fight over retirement benefits, specifically public pensions, to intensify as the election saw Republican make gains in many state-level legislatures and governor’s offices.

From Reuters:

Defenders of public pensions say they will be particularly focused on Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where they expect moves to reform pensions will gain steam after Republican gains on Tuesday.

“This fight is not going away,” said Jordan Marks of the National Public Pension Coalition, a national union-funded group that seeks to protect public pensions. “There are a number of states, including Colorado and Nevada. We are looking at next year.”

[…]

In Nevada, Republicans wrested control of both the state assembly and senate from Democrats. Lawmakers reconvene in February.

A Republican bill to switch Nevada’s pensions to a hybrid system was killed by Democrats in 2013. Analysts expect Republicans to reintroduce the measure next year.

In Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo, the state treasurer who spearheaded pension reform measures in 2011, was elected governor despite union opposition. Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker, an avowed enemy of unions after taking them on in 2011, was re-elected.

In California, an effort to get a measure on the 2016 ballot that would give local governments more leeway to cut public pension plans will also be renewed, according to the outgoing mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed, the measure’s main proponent and a rare Democratic advocate for pension reform.

Victory for Reed’s successor in San Jose, Democrat Sam Liccardo, another vocal pension reformer, means a fight between police and the city over retirement benefits will continue unabated.

Labor leaders identified Colorado as another key state in the battle over pensions. Democrats control the House, but control of the Senate is still up in the air.

Map: Retirement Income By State

Here’s a map of retirement income by state, measured as a percentage of pre-retirement income.

Experts generally say retirees need to be earning at least 70 percent of their pre-retirement income to maintain their lifestyle during retirement. Only one state fits that bill: Nevada.

This map was developed from a study of Census Bureau data by Interest.com.

You can find the study here.

Chart credit: Interest.com

The Only State Where Retirees Have Enough Income

A new study has analyzed Census Bureau data to determine in which states the typical retiree is living a “healthy” retirement – that is, a retirement where one earns at least 70 percent of their pre-retirement income.

The study found there was only one state where the median retiree had enough retirement income: Nevada.

From Time.com:

Financial advisers generally agree you need at least 70% of pre-retirement income to maintain your lifestyle after calling it quits. Many say 80% to 85% is a more appropriate target.

But even using the lower bar, Nevada is the only state where the typical retiree has sufficient income to live comfortably in retirement, according to a study from Interest.com, a division of Bankrate, a financial information provider. The District of Columbia also makes the cut. But every other jurisdiction in the nation falls short, underscoring the scope of the retirement income crisis in America.

Nationally, the median income for those who are 65 and older equals just 60% of the median income for those aged 45 to 64, the study found. In Nevada, median income for those past 65 is 71%. In Washington D.C., the figure is 74%. States that get close to the minimum retirement income level are Hawaii (69%), Arizona (68%) and Mississippi (68%). At the bottom are Massachusetts (49%) and North Dakota (49%).

The national rate represents a jump of 10 percentage points over the past decade. But that is not as encouraging as it may appear, reflecting trends where older Americans stay on the job longer and young workers fail to see significant wage gains. The share of Americans working past 65 has been increasing for 20 years and reached 18.9% this May, one of the highest levels in the last half century.

Just below Nevada were Mississippi and Arizona, state where retirees benefit low costs of living, as well as Hawaii, a state that carries a “strong pension culture”.

Near the bottom of the list was Massachusetts.

Nevada PERS to Release Member Data After Years-Long Legal Fight

A three-year legal battle concluded this week when the Nevada Public Employment Retirement System (NVPERS) agreed to release extensive data on its members, including benefits, in compliance with a state Supreme Court order from April.

The data to be released, according to a NVPERS notice (also embedded at the bottom of this post):

-Date of hire

-Date of termination

-Date of retirement

-Retirement option

-Employer name

-Contributions to system

-Service credit

-Beneficiary information

-Gross benefit amount

-Base retirement amount

-Adjustments to base

-Post retirement increase amount

-Retirement stop date and reason

-Marital status

-Fund status

-Gender

The court order forces a stark change in policy for a retirement system that had kept a notoriously tight grasp on its member and retiree records since the 1970s.

But a state Supreme Court order—an order issued last December but not clarified until this month—made it clear that, while individual retiree records will remain confidential, any reports based on that data produced by NVPERS are not confidential. In the words of the court:

Where information is contained in a medium separate from the individuals’ files, including in administrative reports generate from data contained in individuals’ files, such reports or other media is not confidential merely because the same information is also contained in individuals’ files.

That means NVPERS now must turn over what it calls its “actuarial feed”, or the detailed reports—containing substantial amounts of member data—it gives to its actuarial consultants. The consultants use the data to determine benefits and make projections.

More on the “actuarial feed” from WatchdogWire:

The agency described the “actuarial data feed,” which now is to be made public, as “an extensive report always thought to be confidential between the System and our actuarial consultant protected through a confidentiality agreement which has now been determined in part to be public information.”

Geoffrey Lawrence, director of research and legislative affairs at the Nevada Policy Research Institute, said the data-feed information is vital if researchers are “to build a clear understanding about how public pension liabilities have accrued in Nevada.

…

Under Nevada public records law, personal information remains confidential. Thus, PERS emphasized, it “will NOT release any Social Security numbers, contact information (addresses, phone numbers, or email addresses), bank information, or minor child information.”

This legal fight began in 2011, when the Reno Gazette-Journal filed a public records request asking NVPERS to release data on its members, including benefit payments and work history.

NVPERS denied that request, a move consistent with the System’s long-standing interpretation of the Nevada Public Records Act—the interpretation being that all individual member and retiree records are confidential.

The Gazette-Journal subsequently filed a petition to bring the case in front of a District Court. The court eventually ruled that NVPERS did indeed have to turn over the names of its retirees and the benefits they receive, among other data.

NVPERS appealed that decision all the way to the state Supreme Court, which issued its ruling in December. But NVPERS requested another hearing, held in April, to have the court clarify exactly what records it wanted NVPERS to disclose.

The results of that hearing were released just this month.

The data to be released by NVPERS can eventually be found on Transparent Nevada.

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