STUMP » Articles » Results: 2017 Pension-Related Ballot Measures » 8 November 2017, 12:29

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Results: 2017 Pension-Related Ballot Measures  

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8 November 2017, 12:29

John Bury stayed up and beat me to the results (I’m still dealing with the time change), so I’ll give you a couple of graphs in addition.

Prior post: Public Pension-Related Ballot Measures: 2017

NEW YORK PROPOSALS

The Constitutional Convention proposal (#1) lost and the Yank Criminal Officials’ Pensions proposal (#2) won.

Here are some graphs, courtesy the state:

These were lopsided votes, though not quite as lopsided as I expected on #2. I assume that a bunch of the government employees voted against it.

Let’s see, 877,154 votes against… far more than 900K participants in NY pensions. So maybe not.

Of course, many of those participants are no longer NY residents, but perhaps they don’t let it get in the way of voting.

MAINE PROPOSAL 4

The proposal to lengthen amortization periods passed.

Here are the stats:

Pulling out a comment here:

9:42 p.m.

Mainers have approved a constitutional amendment dealing with the state pension system.

The ballot question on Tuesday dealt with amortization of pension losses.

Many voters were confused by the wording of the ballot question, but it still won support.

The idea was to stretch from 10 years to 20 years the time required to pay back any unfunded liability that was created by investment losses. The state says the extended timeline would insulate the system from shifts in the economy while still protecting the public retirement system.

The pension system to support retired state employees and teachers is in Maine Constitution, so any changes require a constitutional amendment approved by referendum.

Thing is, as noted in my prior post, there were only positive op-eds on this item, and it was being sold as keeping from any large spikes in pension costs.

I think the shorter amortization period helps make the Maine plans more stable, but nobody asked me.

HOUSTON PENSION OBLIGATION BOND

$1 Billion in POBs, passed.

Here are the stats:

OVERALL THOUGHTS

All of the results were as I expected, the NY results were as I wished, the Maine results not as I wished, and I’m ambivalent on Houston.

As for other results:

New Jersey governor – as ably documented by John Bury over the election cycle, neither major candidates had any solid plan for dealing with NJ pensions.

Checking out this graph, it really doesn’t matter who is governor — one can bet they’ll continue to short the pensions:

Oh, and the money will run out. But that’s for later.

Virginia governor – as far as I can tell, pensions did not pop up as an issue. Perhaps they should have. I see some things that concern me here, and I’ll visit that soon enough.

Looks like 2018 is going to be an even wilder ride — whee.


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