The Union-Tribune has a story today about a battle over the value of future pension payments between recently departed San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System (SDCERS) Administrator David Wescoe and Councilman Carl DeMaio.
The story’s headline says that DeMaio was “flagged” on pension payment data and that on his way out the door, Wescoe called DeMaio “misleading.”
Very well, my interest is piqued…what does the story say? Turns out that Wescoe is criticizing DeMaio for using numbers SDCERS provided to DeMaio!
From the article:
“The numbers are from an August report created by the pension fund’s outside actuary, Gene Kalwarski, to show what it will cost to pay off the billion-dollar-plus pension deficit over the next 25 years.”
And here is where it gets interesting:
Mayor Jerry Sanders also relied on those figures when he recently formulated a five-year budget outlook for the city.
It doesn’t seem like Wescoe criticized the Mayor and his financial folks for using the numbers he provided. Why did he single out DeMaio? The article continues:
“The criticism from Wescoe follows the harsh words he leveled at DeMaio and Councilwoman Donna Frye in September. The council members said the pension board shouldn’t even consider a proposal that would have decreased the city’s annual payment this year but lead to larger payments down the line. The pension board eventually sided with the council members.”
Yikes. Smells like sour grapes. Is it the proper role of the administrator of the retirement system to attempt to smear an elected official? Let alone for using numbers provided by the system’s independent actuary? Seems absurd.