THE FRESNO BEE
By Tim Sheehan
FRESNO, CALIF. -- The city of Fresno’s employee retirement system is the only major public pension program in California – and one of only a few in the United States – that has a surplus instead of unfunded pension liabilities, according to a report issued Thursday by a Nevada-based think tank.
The analysis by Transparent California indicates that Fresno’s pension system “has avoided the pension crisis currently sweeping the state” with more modest and less bloated benefit payouts, said Robert Fellner, the organization’s research director. Transparent California is part of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a nonprofit free-market and limited-government advocacy group.
“The benefits are still very comfortable, richer than most private-sector workers get, but they are considerably less inflated than any other pension system in California,” Fellner said Thursday. “They have a surplus, and that’s so different than anybody else.”
