How Will Taxpayers Fund San Leandro's $189 Million Benefit Burden?

San Leandro taxpayers face a financial time bomb.

They are responsible for $118,819,000 in health and pension benefits for city staffers, police and fire fighters.

The money to pay for those promised benefits has yet to be identified.

To put this in perspective, the City's general fund is $76 million, Mayor Stephen Cassidy wrote in an email.

On Monday, February 25 at 7 pm, the City Council will hold a work session on how to meet these long term unfunded liabilities for pension and heath care expenses.

The unfunded liabilities are:


1. All city employee unfunded retiree health care liability - $16,179,000
2. Non-public safety employee unfunded CalPERS (pension) liability - $36,625,000
3. Police officer unfunded CalPERS (pension) liability - $47,597,000
4. Fire Department unfunded retiree health care liability (owed by City of San Leandro) - $18,418,000

That totals $118,819,000.

There will be presentations from our Finance Director and the Alameda County Fire Department (with whom the City contracts for fire services - the firefighters stationed in San Leandro are not City employees).

City officials got a preliminary look at these liabilities during a planning workshop they held in January. 

You can read the presentation from that workshop at http://sanleandro.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=AO&ID=9659&GUID=9ab25371-294b-44a4-9fd8-61e607adcd58&N=UG93ZXJQb2ludDogMjAxMi0xMyBDQyBXaW50ZXIgUGxhbm5pbmcgMS0yNi0xMyAoZmluYWwp

Alameda County officials have been asking similar questions about how to pay for future health and pension promises, as this Patch article explains.

Unfunded pension liabilities are also of concern at the state level, and the same issue faces state and local governments throughout the nation.

Do you have a pension, 401K or retirement health program other than Social Security and/or Medicare?