Pension Update Prompts Call for Options

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 23, 2009 at 2:52 PM PST

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

The San Diego city council got an update on the state of the pension deficit Monday. The dire forecasts prompted several council members to ask if the payment schedule could be extended further out in

The San Diego city council got an update on the state of the pension deficit Monday. The dire forecasts prompted several council members to ask if the payment schedule could be extended further out into the future. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

If the market does not pick up before this summer, the city of San Diego could face a pension payment of $250 million next year. That’s $100 million more than it paid this year.

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By law, the pension board is independent of the city. But several councilmembers asked for options to soften the budget blow, such as extending payments beyond the current 20 year schedule.

Council woman Marti Emeral.

Emerald: "And even perhaps extend it out further because even if this recession was to bottom out this year and we were to start creeping back up we’re digging a hole between now and then and it certainly would help provide basic services to taxpayers here."

About 70 per cent of the money to cover the annual pension payments comes out of the General Fund the city uses to pay for police, fire, libraries and parks.

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Currently, the pension payments amounts to about 10 per cent of the city’s General Fund.

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.