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Pension consultants leave city in financial limbo

By Alison St John / Reporter,  KPBS Public Broadcasting
Published July 2, 2006 at 9:00 PM PDT
This story was published more than 18 years ago.

Consultants investigating the city of San Diego's pension deficit have let yet another month go by with nothing to show for the $20 million the city has paid them. Without their report, the city's is

Consultants investigating the city of San Diego's pension deficit have let yet another month go by with nothing to show for the $20 million the city has paid them. Without their report, the city's is left hanging in financial limbo, unable to borrow on the bond market. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The consultants, Kroll Incorporated, indicated they'd be done by the end of June, but July is now under way and the latest date for the release of the long awaited report has slipped by once again.
City attorney Mike Aguirre accuses the consultants of artificially prolonging the city's agony in order to postpone the day of reckoning for those responsible for the massive pension deficit.

AGUIRRE: "The essential facts are in and the whole idea that we are paying 20 million dollars to Kroll, that's primarily focused on stalling, it's preposterous."

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Aguirre is also angry Kroll proposes to show their findings to the US Attorney, the SEC and the external auditor before releasing it to the city.

The mayor's spokesman Fred Sainz says the delay is highly frustrating, but it's wiser to let the federal agencies and the auditor see the report before its release. That way, he says, the city wont be accused of tampering with the conclusions.

SAINZ: "We would not be in a situation where the agencies were then crying foul on the various conclusions of the report after the fact."

Sainz says one thing's for sure -- the report will include more than 100 remediations. - Measures the city must take to be sure San Diego never runs up an huge deficit and tries to hide it from the bond markets again. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John
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.
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