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Fort Worth pension: ‘You can’t fix it at one point and assume it will always be good

If no action is taken to stabilize it, the city's $2.3 billion fund could run out of money by 2048.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- The city’s consultants warned there are no easy fixes for the Fort Worth Employees’ Retirement Fund $1.6 billion unfunded liability.

If no action is taken to stabilize it, the city’s $2.3 billion fund could run out of money by 2048.

Regardless of what the city does to shore up the fund, there’s no guarantee it will fix the fund permanently, said actuary Paul Schrader during a budget workshop on Thursday.

“You can’t fix it at one point and assume it will always be good,” Schrader said.

That was one of the assessments laid out to the Fort Worth City Council during a budget workshop Thursday about how to fix the city’s $1.6 billion unfunded liability. The pension fund covers more than 6,000 active city employees and 4,400 retirees.

The Fort Worth Professional Firefighters Association Local 440 urged the City Council to leave the retirement’s fund cost of living adjustments, also known as a COLA, alone.

“We can’t touch COLA’s for actual retirees,” said Michael Glynn, president of the firefighters association.

To keep the COLA, the firefighters association suggested increasing both the city and employee contributions.

Manny Ramirez, president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association., offered two alternatives that also increased the city and employee contributions that would meet the funding requirements to fix the shortfall. He echoed the concern about messing with the COLA.

Read more from our media partners at the Star-Telegram

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