Councilman suggests city employees pay more to fill Philly pension hole

Philadelphia City Council is looking at its options for replenishing the public pension funds.  So far, however, budget hearings have unearthed no easy solutions.

Various Council members offered their ideas about the city’s sagging pension accounts, which are only about 50 percent funded.  Councilman Alan Domb suggested that employee contributions go up a lot — in some cases double.”The median non-uniformed employee pension contributions in the 10 largest cities are 6 percent overall while uniformed is 8 percent.  We don’t have that in Philadelphia,” Domb said. “Just by following the rules of what everyone else is doing, we would generate $45 million more per year for the pension.”Philadelphia has more retirees than active workers, said Francis Bielli of the Philadelphia Board of Pensions and Retirement, while other cities have more active workers than retirees collecting pensions.Any change in employee contributions would have to be negotiated during contract talks.