watchdog

Saturday, December 13, 2008

CAN DEMOCRACY SURVIVE WITHOUT A STRONG, INVESTIGATIVE PRINT MEDIA?

I went to the Rotary Club meeting last Tuesday and John Malmo was the speaker. His subject was “Can Democracy survive if investigative newspapers do not”. It was an important speech and he is uniquely qualified to speak on the subject.


I am sending it along to you to read as news breaks about the Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich. We need tough, suspicious reporters working for investigative print newspapers but they are disappearing before our eyes. What will replace them and catch the next crooked governor, mayor or even president? I need you thoughts on this important subject.


Click here to read an important speech by Mr. John Malmo concerning the future of print media and the survival of democracy

Friday, December 12, 2008

AN AD IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

There was an ad in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, December 9th on page D3. The ad featured three houses in Tennessee, Nashville, Memphis and Chattanooga.

The Nashville house had 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4413 sq. ft. at a price of $499,900 with taxes of $3952.

The Chattanooga home was the same price with 4 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, 5710 sq. ft. at the same price with taxes of $3657.

The Memphis home was the same price with 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, 4008 sq. ft. with taxes of $7200.

This illustrates the problem we have here in Memphis with high property taxes which continues to drive people out of Memphis to other locations. We need to lower propety taxes if we are to compete with others areas of Tennessee and the Mid South.

A DROP IN THE BUCKET

I have been investigating the huge unfunded liability associated with the promises made by our local politicians to our public retirees concerning paying most of their health insurance premiums after retirement. To date they have been paying only the annual actual costs, not the future actuarial costs. This is called OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits). The unfunded liability according to the actuarial reports for the City of Memphis, MLGW, Shelby County and the Memphis City School System is over $3 BILLION DOLLARS.

Recently I talked to people at Shelby County and they are talking about funding this liability up to possibly $20 million this year. The MLGW set up a fund in 1997 but has not contributed much if any since then. The City of Memphis in their 2009 budget has said that they are contributing $6 million dollars towards their unfunded liability of $823 million. (See attached 2009 budget pages, page 2 of 4). This shows that they will not keep providing this benefit in the future and they have indicated that they will cut this benefit soon. There is no way we can afford these promises and it is time now to tell the truth to the present and future retirees so that they can make other arrangements for their health care in the future.

POLITICAL DIVISION

OPEB UNFUNDED LIABILITY

City of Memphis

$823,000,000

MLGW

$709,000,000

Shelby County

$353,000,000

Memphis City Schools $1,250,000,000

Total $3,125,000,000