Aguirre urges city employees to reinvest

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published March 6, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

San Diego city attorney Mike Aguirre is encouraging city employees to take money out of the city's ailing pension system and reinvest it in their 401k's. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

According to Aguirre, since the city's pension system is only 58 percent funded, an investment that follows Wall Street's ups and downs would be safer.

He suggests employees pull out of a program where they purchased years of service credits while the pension system still has the money.

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Aguirre: "It's not a question so much of if it's illegal, it's a question of if it's a wise move financially, and I think if you can get 100 cents on the dollar out on your purchase of service credits I think that will work to your advantage."

The employees' union advises its members not to follow Aguirre's advice.

If everyone who purchased service credits pulled their money out, the pension system would loose $121 million, but also shed $300 million in liability.

The Pension system has balked at requests by councilwoman Donna Frye to refund her service credit purchases. Alison St John, KPBS news.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.