News Clips for August 10th, 2010

• Retired Minneapolis police seek voice in battle over pension cuts
  Two former Minneapolis officers who served on the pension fund board have filed motions to allow them to represent the pensioners.
• Pensions and the Public
  Thanks to years of overoptimistic economic projections and the habit of politicians to prefer future cost increases to current cost increases, public pension funds are pretty seriously underfunded right now. That means taxpayers are going to have to come up with many billions of additional dollars to fund pensions at the levels that have been promised to public workers.
• 10 city pensions top $79,000
  Warwick is budgeted to spend roughly $22.2 million of the taxpayers' money for retiree pensions this fiscal year - about $1.5 million more than last year. The city's top 10 highest pension earners will all take home more than $79,000.
• Contributions hit retirement more than markets
  The drop in voluntary contributions since 2007 has had a greater impact on the overall adequacy of retirement income levels than the global financial crisis, according to Access Economics head of macroeconomic group Chris Richardson.
• U.S. retirement assets up 2.6% in Q1, ICI says
  U.S. retirement assets totaled $16.494 trillion as of March 31, up 2.6% from the end of the 2009, according to an Investment Company Institute report issued Wednesday.
• Battle Looms Over Huge Costs of Public Pensions
  There's a class war coming to the world of government pensions.
• Oakland police officers agree to pay into pension plan
  The city's police officers have agreed to a deal that requires them to pay 9 percent into their pension plans by 2013 and work longer before they can retire.