Operating on a Deficit with huge unfunded Pension Liabilities

Politicians want to blame every Lake Worth administration over the past 50 years for the condition of our roads.  The fact remains is that retirement benefits take the biggest part of our operating budget.  There is NO money left over to have new roads ever since the Unions got a hold of this city.  Employees believe that they are entitled to 80% or 100% of their salary for life after reaching age 55 or whatever it is now. We are lucky to be able to afford the basic services that cities must provide. On top of that, the taxpayers are very generous and award them better than average salaries with benefits they only can dream about.

Lake Worth commissioners need to do something about this uncontrollable union retirement benefits and make serious changes. Instead, they sweep it all under the rug--too political and they "care" about their employees. Have you even heard one discussion on this?

At the end of fiscal year 2013, Lake Worth taxpayers contributed the following into the various pension funds for that fiscal year beginning October 1, 2012 ending September 30, 2013:

 Employee retirement system: $3,293,953.00
 Police: $1,733,395.00
 Firefighters: $1,845,288.00

At that time, non-controllable costs were 66.55% of our operating budget with that percentage projected to rise to 69.31% in 2014. I'm not even going to mention the massive amount of unfunded liabilities (a situation that could lead to bankruptcy) as I have gone over that numerous times in the past.

Out of a proposed operating budget of $31,006,779 for FY2015, controllable costs are $9,953,178 and we only took in $5,646,125 in ad-valorem. This shows everyone how poor we really are but the "free lunch' is here to stay or until there is another commission.

How do you run a city that is so far in debt, spends more than it takes in, increases department budgets and hires more personnel which means more retirement and medical benefits, and stay afloat?

They come up with this clever phrase about getting into the 21st Century and want to tax the people on some emotional pothole fix and want to grab $63.5 million. Has anyone thought about how much money that is or where it all will end up?