Stockton has it all over even Portland. From SF Gate:

"What alarmed Deis [Stockton's new city manager] was the depth of the city's huge unfunded guarantee for health care for retired city employees, caused in part by a very generous policy that promises city workers lifetime coverage for themselves and a spouse after just one month of employment. Union leaders say the benefits are not excessive."

I can't figure out why they're going bankrupt...

From the article cited:

"“There was no money set aside to fund those commitments,” Stockton City Manager Bob Deis told Capital Public Radio in reference to $760 million in city debt and unfunded liabilities."

Stockton: 291,000 people $760 million in city debt and unfunded liabilities.

Portland 584,000 people $6.4 billion in city debt and unfunded liabilities.

Fortunately, ever-rising real estate prices will allow Portland to pay off the $6.4 billion easily! Randy said so!

I can save you the eager anticipation.

Last biennium we didn't have enough money for schools or police protection. However, out of a $15B general funds budget they managed to find (between sofa cushions I guess) $1.1B for employee benefits.

Employee benefits will trump any/every spending by the state. Get used to it. Govt is scared to death of waking the public union beast.

So we'll just keep going until we have a bunch of public employees not doing anything for taxpayers.

Membership and participation in public employee pension schemes is today's rough equivalent to membership in the communist party in the old USSR. It has been that way for most of the last two decades. Membership has its privileges. The economic drag and rot of inequality can no longer be papered over.

"Funding" the pension mess doubles the fun. The money match scheme for example worked like a margin account where your stock broker let you pay 50% of the price of stock because he lent you the money for the rest. Except that with PERS money match the lender -- you -- lent nothing . . . other than an apparent promise to simultaneously cover all losses and match the gains. It is like the win-win MO behind any Goldschmidt inspired scheme to bilk the general public.

The only solution is the termination of all public employee pension schemes operated by government. The Oregon Education Association is allowed under federal law to create their own retirement investment fund. But, of course, I would insist that each individual teacher be free to say no thanks, I'll invest my savings on my own or with Joe Schmo.

If the Portland Police Association and Portland Firefighters Association had their own pension investment scheme(s) then Randy Leonard would never have become a city commissioner. He could have become all he deserved to be -- a union pension trustee.

It's not just a choice between paying for public safety officers now or retirement and medical benefits for those who have retired, but for paying for all manner of public employees vs. paying more for their pension and medical benefits. Two years ago the state of Oregon started facing that reality that 25 percent of most Oregon budgets (including schools) would by 2012 be siphoned off in that direction and a month ago you started seeing the carefully-organized union protests in Salem.

It's all over our state and many others. California is the worst. Michael Lewis wrote an interesting piece in Vanity Fair last fall focusing on this, including a lengthy interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Communism analogy fits.

Elitist entitlement mentality. Check.
Pay me regardless if I work. Check.
Totally unsustainable. Check.

So who will be Portland's Reagan/Thatcher to publically exclaim that this gig is almost over?

Having the progressive left run anything, will soon make the whole US look like THE EUROPEAN case study in repeated failure. Anyone surprised ?

Maybe the plan is to replace retirement benefits with free streetcar rides.

I forgot to escape my html in my last post. It should've ended with "(wink)"

Actually, there are a whole lot of differences between Portland's situation and that in Stockton. There are no post-retirement medical benefits in Portland; police and firefighters are on their own for medical care the moment they retire. Also, the retirement benefits in Portland are far, far less than they are in Stockton.

There's also a political difference. In Stockton, the pension benefits were collectively bargained. In Portland, the pension benefits -- and the fact that we choose not to presently fund the cost of future benefits -- were enacted by the voters. No blaming the police and fire unions for the vote, either, as it happened scores of years before they even existed.

Some mention also should be made of the fact that for several years, new hires in Portland have been placed into PERS, and that the unfunded liability of Portland's plan is now a "last person's club."

What year did you retire from the bureau?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/jefferson-county-bankruptcy-allowed-under-alabama-law.html

Jefferson County, here we come!

"Actually, there are a whole lot of differences between Portland's situation and that in Stockton. There are no post-retirement medical benefits in Portland; police and firefighters are on their own for medical care the moment they retire. Also, the retirement benefits in Portland are far, far less than they are in Stockton."

Of course, that is why Stockton is dying first. Nevertheless, $3.1 billion in unfunded pension benefits is $3.1 billion in unfunded pension benefits.

A number of impeccable liberals in California (like the mayor of San Jose) have figured out that in a few years, the primary business of California city government is going to be taxing the populace, and then transferring that money to retired government workers. For people who actually want to provide reasonable governmental services, this is not a desirable outcome.

I notice that Portland unions are already protesting proposed cuts - I understand that representatives from LIU and other unions were leafletting just prior to Scam's "State of the City" blabfest.

I've said for a long time now that public employees have no business being allowed to unionize.

"“There was no money set aside to fund those commitments,” Stockton City Manager Bob Deis told Capital Public Radio

In other words, business as usual at TriMet. "It isn't costing us anything...NOW." (But there's no plan to account for the operating expense later - except to cut more bus lines.)