Barcus hangs up; Register screws up; IPERS is down
So when it’s clear David Adelman has finished out-of-the-running for a Des Moines city council seat in last week’s primary, he calls the two who beat him — and who will face each other in a runoff — to congratulate them. Skip Moore was kind and gracious, Adelman reports, asking about his family and making some small talk. Leisha Barcus, Adelman says, said she was too busy to talk, that she was busy celebrating her victory — and hung up on him.
An Adelman endorsement could make the difference in the runoff between Barcus and Moore. Asked by Cityview after the snub, Adelman said he didn’t know whether he’d come out for a candidate in the Dec. 1 runoff.
It isn’t news until The Des Moines Register says it is:
From Sunday’s Register: “I support giving Iowans the right to vote on the definition of marriage, and will work to break the roadblock in the Iowa Legislature that prevents it,” Terry Branstad said. “It was Branstad’s first public statement since joining the race about gay marriage, a focal point of the early primary in light of the Iowa Supreme Court’s April decision legalizing same-sex marriage.”
Well, actually it was Branstad’s first public statement at an event covered by the Register. He said much the same thing a week earlier at a very public event in Wilton, which was covered by the Davenport paper and duly reported in Cityview. But it isn’t public until the Register hears it.
Sometimes, it isn’t news even when the Register says it is:
“Sent: Thu Nov 05 10:43:55 2009
“Subject: Erroneous D M Register Report
“F Y I
“Contrary to a D M Register Web posting shortly after 9 a.m. today, the IUB has not reached a decision in the MidAmerican wind case. As of now the Board is expected back in open session at 2 p.m.,” said an e-mail from Chuck Seel, manager of customer service for the Iowa Utilities Board.
“The Board had just gone into closed session at the time the Register posting was discovered. When it was brought to the attention of the Register, they couldn’t find the public posting on their own website, but Yahoo had it. The Register had written two stories, one approved, one disapproved, and they were supposed to be in queue awaiting board action. Somehow they got out and the one can still be found if you look hard enough. At least one industry trade newsletter has called as the result of the Register error.
“Gotta’ be first!
“Chuck”
Final Register item: Larry Ballard, a well-regarded editor who was shipped off to the suburbs in the last round of layoffs at the paper, is leaving the paper after 12 years. He’s joining the corporate-communications department at Hy-Vee.
Has anyone noticed that Lt. Gov. Patty Judge hasn’t followed the lead of her running-mate and signed on for a 10 percent pay cut? She makes $103,000 a year, and a guy who usually knows such things says she’s really pissed about the cut, in part because the Governor last year publicly blocked a pay increase for her and other elected officials after he had privately agreed to it. This guy says Judge has no intention of signing on, but Skinny doubts she can hold out as the campaign heats up. Meantime, Skinny hears that Branstad needn’t worry about paying the bills now that he is unemployed. His retirement package from Des Moines University is said to be quite generous. “They loved him,” says a guy who hopes Branstad is the next governor. Another guy who got a nice retirement package — millions and millions and millions, Skinny is told — is Doug Reichardt, who is stepping down at Holmes Murphy. Talk persists that Reichardt will be the running mate of Branstad if Branstad can out-right his foes and get the Republican nomination to face Chet Culver. But Skinny doubts the party will end up with two white guys from Des Moines.
Speaking of retirement — a really nifty segue by Skinny here — here’s another problem on the horizon for the state: pensions.
IPERS, the retirement fund for most state and municipal employees, has huge money problems — its investments have tanked (net assets have dropped to about $18 billion from more than $23 billion), someone stole a piece of the pie (an investment adviser apparently made off with $300 million), and retired government employees can live a long time (around 150 of them are 100 years old or older). The fund pays out more than $1.1 billion a year to 88,000 or so retirees, and it has an unfunded liability of around $5 billion — meaning that in the long run it owes that much more than the actuaries say it will have. The state and local governments now put in 6.65 percent of the pay of most employees, or about $400 million a year, and the employees put in 4.3 percent, or about $250 million a year. That’s scheduled to go to 6.95 percent and 4.5 percent next July, for a total of 11.45 percent of a worker’s pay. But that’s not enough to pay future pensions. So the Benefits Advisory Committee decided last week to ask the Legislature to increase that total to 13.45 percent starting in July of 2011, to change the vesting period to seven years from four starting in July of 2012 and to reduce benefits for those who retire before they are 65 even if they meet all the retirement rules. And even with all this, that unfunded liability is predicted to rise steeply in coming years.
All this will cost the state and local governments at least another $100 million a year. No one knows, of course, where that money will come from. But the first $10,300 will probably come from Patty Judge. CV
