Rich Cline missed the City's budget vote? He didn't even call in?

I would like to better understand MP's unfunded pension liabilities and how serious a problem this is and what more, if anything, MP should be doing about it. Web Link I learned about Pensiontracker.org via an article in today's Daily News that included a reference to the site, so I went there and looked up Menlo Park. The data is from 2015 so the numbers could be better or worse. It lists the "Market Pension/Debt per Household" as being $13,920 for Menlo Park. Instead of the relatively rapid process of draft budget to approval (in about 30 days), it would be wonderful to see more "Study Sessions" or interactive workshops (spread out during the year) on various MP financial topics, such as unfunded pension liabilities, the overall taxes and fees that MP taxpayers pay (and how much they have gone up/down over the past five years), more detailed explanation of the Capital Improvement budget and what is being planned regarding the unfunded amount for the projects, and so forth. Love to see a short survey for residents regarding financial topics they would like to know more about. Based on the highest priorities, would then like to see these topics addressed in a series of seminars, possibly held at the library as part of the library's programming.

Lynne:

unfunded pension liabilities are a ticking time bomb. The city has consistently "kicked the can down the road" when it comes to pensions. This is going to blow up on the city and the state. Last study I read had the unfunded pension liability for Calpers (which includes MP employees) is $400 BILLION. And NO ONE is addressing this problem. The politicians, in the pocket of civil service unions, continue to ignore the problem and do nothing to address it. Yes, they've been forced to make municipalities contribute more to the retirement contribution, BUT that doesn't necessarily mean a fix. It generally means raises to employees to cover the required additional pension contributions. One only need look at the MPCSD to see evidence of that.

Menlo Voter:

You are right. If I did the math correctly, in 2015 MP's unfunded pension liability was about $160 Million! That's based on Pensiontracker's perr capita/debt of $5,173 and estimating a population of 32,000. Of course, today's numbers may be higher or lower. What will this liability become due? What else should MP be doing? Council recently approved the 2018-19 budget, which included adding 9 full-time employees.

Has MP ever had a staffing audit that included staffing level benchmarks with like cities? Before hiring more staff, I think that we need to implement a city-wide volunteer program with a staff person focused on recruiting volunteers for a spectrum of volunteer work. The projects could range from done-in-a-day ones to short-term or longer-term commitments. According to research, retired boomers want meaningful volunteer activities and aren't likely to sign up to just stuff envelopes.

Having more residents involved in our local government, as volunteers, would build a stronger resident/staff partnership too. The volunteers would increase the residents' voice and perspectives into staff's day-to-day decision-making. It would also tend to lead to staff treating residents as their clients. After all, we should be working towards shared goals. More resident volunteers would also tend to increase transparency, oversight and accountability.