Report Inappropriate Comments

Here is the document that none of the union members want (or cant) read. It is also the document that the gutless city council refused to make public, so I will do it for them. Try to read and understand it. To sum it up, the actuaries agree with Cushman. ENJOY

To: The Honorable City Council

From: Catherine King Avila

Date: October 15, 2014

Re: PCR-108-14 - Requesting the City Council Auditor Respond to Councilman Merolla’s E-mail Dated May 1, 2014 Regarding Pension Plans And Healthcare Costs

MEMORANDUM

In response to the Resolution appearing on this evening’s Council Docket, please consider the following:

• On May 1, 2014, I received an e-mail from Councilman Merolla, asking me to “verify the numbers” contained in Former Councilman Robert Cushman’s “Warwick impact analysis handouts 1 & 2“. The attachments were 1 page summaries. I substituted the full reports for review, when they became available on May 5, 2014.

• Not yet having been able to secure the actuarial reports for the past 10 years, I contacted Joe Newton, the actuary from GabrielRoeder who prepares the City’s actuarial reports. On June 25th, Mr. Newton replied to my inquiry and stated that the contents of Mr. Cushman’s analysis was consistent with his own findings, and noted that many of the exhibits were mostly excerpts from those same reports (conversation summarized via e-mail).

As of the Council meeting on July 14, I understood that the information was no longer required, since the Budget Hearings had concluded.

Nonetheless, believing the data might be helpful in subsequent budget discussions and Union negotiations, I took the following steps:

• Because Mr. Cushman’s analysis cited data from 2004 forward, and only the more recent actuarial reports are available on-line, I needed to collect all of the actuarial studies dated back to that time. Consequently, I requested the assistance of the appropriate administrative departments in retrieving those documents for each of the 4 pension plans – some 20 documents all told. I received the last of these on August 1, 2014.

• Although encompassing a 10-year span, most of the healthcare information could be pulled from prior years’ budget documents, which were more readily available than the actuarial reports.

Based on my review of the data and discussions with the appropriate individuals, I can confirm that to the best of my knowledge, the Cushman analysis of the pension and healthcare liabilities is accurately stated.