San Diego County Weighs Retiree Health Care Options
San Diego County Supervisors on Tuesday will meet to consider a counterproposal from the county retirement board about retiree health care benefits, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
County supervisors in December 2006 voted to end county contributions to retiree health care benefits if the retirement board did not agree to changes that supervisors said would help reduce the county's long-term debt (Gustafson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6/17).
The retirement board in May rejected the supervisors' plan by county supervisors and adopted a counterproposal that would maintain county contributions to retiree health care benefits.
The counterproposal would use reserve funds to pay for monthly pension increases to recent retirees, thereby removing the debt from county funds (California Healthline, 5/4). The county would continue to fund health care benefits for older retirees.
The plan also would use all investment earnings above 8.25% to reduce the county's $1.2 billion pension deficit until it is 90% funded. After that, three-fourths of investment returns above 8.25% would be used to help address the county pension deficit.
The Union-Tribune reports that a majority of supervisors support the counterproposal (San Diego Union-Tribune, 6/17).