Pension Fund

Wenonah residents will decide on Election Day whether their five police officers can transfer into a state pension fund that allows for increased benefits. The new plan, Police and Fireman's Retirement System (PFRS), allows full retirement after age 55 with 25 years minimum service. Pensions would be calculated on the basis of the last year's salary and would not penalize early retirement. The current plan, Public Employee Retirement System (PERS), which covers all of Wenonah's municipal employees, requires full retirment at age 60, with the pension based on an average of the last three years' salary, and contains penalties for early retirement.

Philadelphia came looking for simple budget relief, but Republican senators had bigger goals in mind, such as solving the city's pension problem for good. Saying only "long-term pension reform" would restore Philadelphia's fiscal health, Senate Finance Chair Patrick M. Browne signaled at a hearing yesterday that senators were seriously considering state takeovers of troubled municipal pension funds across the commonwealth, Philadelphia's included. Philadelphia Finance Director Rob Dubow pleaded with the senators to save the pension debate for another day. He asked them to instead give the city permission to raise its sales tax from 7 percent to 8 percent, and to grant the short-term pension payment relief Mayor Nutter has asked for. In time, Dubow said, the city will make big changes of its own to the pension fund.

How would it look if baseball declared war on Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams? If suits and countersuits flew between the NFL and Johnny Unitas? If the NBA stood accused of looting the pensions of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain? It would look awful, of course. And that is exactly how things look in the NHL these days, as the league and its greatest legends face off in nasty court cases in Ontario and Camden. "Who would ever think that things could come to this - me fighting the NHL?"

A Teamsters pension fund representing employees of the parent company of The Inquirer asked Thursday that the company's bankruptcy reorganization plan be placed on hold while the fund challenges the plan in U.S. District Court. The pension fund was among four that opposed Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C.'s reorganization plan, which Chief Bankruptcy Judge Stephen Raslavich confirmed Monday. The pension funds oppose the plan because it would turn the company over to new owners without requiring them to take responsibility for existing shortfalls in the funds.

It happened with South Africa. It happened with Northern Ireland. Now the question arises with the tobacco industry: Should the city rid its pension fund of tobacco-related holdings? Beginning in 1987, concern about government-sanctioned racial segregation in South Africa prompted the city to sell off its investments in that country. Ditto when the concern was job discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland. Now, City Councilman Angel Ortiz says Philadelphia must sell off its pension-fund holdings in tobacco-related companies.

COULD Washington's debt-ceiling crisis prove deadly for the city's underfunded pension fund? That was the debate yesterday at a meeting of the city's Board of Pensions and Retirement, during which members questioned the fund's chief investment officer about what strategy to take as lawmakers in Washington teeter on the brink of a default and face a downgrade of the federal government's credit rating. "The issue is, are we at the beginning of a decline like in 2008?" asked Controller Alan Butkovitz.

It may never come to pass, but the Philadelphia Housing Authority pension fund could join two other pension funds in buying notes to keep the city afloat this winter. The Philadelphia Housing Authority Pension Fund, run jointly by Cigna Corp. and the PHA board, is considering the purchase of city loan notes in part to try to increase the size of the transaction beyond the $150 million limit set by local banks involved in the deal, according to PHA Executive Director John Paone.

City pension-fund managers invested heavily in the booming stock market last year and nearly tripled the investment return on the city's $1.1 billion pension fund. The pension fund, from which monthly benefits are paid to about 24,000 retired and disabled former city employees, earned $140 million last year and achieved a 29.7 percent return on its investments, according to Deputy Finance Director Curtis O. Townsend. Townsend presented the 1985 investment report Thursday to the city's Board of Pensions and Retirement.

Philly's troubled municipal pension fund is among the least solvent in the nation, according to a new academic study. The study from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University says the assets on hand in Philadelphia's pension fund will be able to pay for pledged benefits only through 2015. Study co-author Joshua Rauh also said that pension funds in cities like Philadelphia are increasingly eating up money that could otherwise be used for city services like police or libraries.

Wearing her hat as the city's finance director, Betsy Reveal thinks it's a great idea for the municipal pension fund to lend the strapped city up to $75 million. But under her other hat, as the chairperson of the pension fund, it's Reveal's duty to make sure the fund takes good care of the money that the city's retirees count on in their golden years. That means making good investments. In fact, she could be held personally liable if the fund makes bad investments. "The (Home Rule)