LACERA breaking down the math and investment returns. I feel over 7 billion dollars has gone unreported not only to pension holders but to the tax payers that provide it.

What is the organizational structure of the State Controller’s Office and how does it relate to the California Public Pensions? Well one section of the Controllers office is the Audits Division, which can investigate whether taxpayers dollars are being spent as the law intended. I only ask this since they have collected data  and issued a California Public Pension report now for 30 years, but I cannot find were they have investigated any of them? My gathering of reports and data here today will clearly show the habitual misrepresentation of pension fund value by todays subject the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association. I was able to find my data from the Municipal Bond Market on Wall Street than cross checked those figures with the ones being reported to our California State Controllers Office. I did search for older audits from the LACERS web site but none were available. I was also able to search though the various California County Grand jury's and reports they issued as well for helpful information like what I found below.

 http://www.sbcgj.org/2000/aud_fin.htm.
California Counties With Assets In Excess 0f $800 Million

Annualized Returns for Period ending 6/30/00

Combined the Counties below had a yearly investment rate of return over a 5 year span of 14.84%

In other words during this 5 year window the funds in these Counties out performed there previous 50 years !Or on average each of these California public pension funds grew 100% from there value on 06/31/95  

                              

COUNTY	ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS	FUND BALANCE (market value)	1 YR RATE OF RETURN	3 YR RATE OF RETURN	5 YR RATE OF RETURN
Los Angeles	88,420	$30.3 billion	15.2%	14.6%	15.7%
Orange	20,357	$4.8 billion	11.85%	12.70%	14.46%
San Diego	16,910	$3.7 billion	15.75%	14.59%	16.02%
San Bernardino	15,529	$3.6 billion	9.74%	12.70%	14.12%
Sacramento	10,547	$3.3 billion	9.54%	13.19%	15.41%
Alameda	9,859	$3.8 billion	10.88%	13.10%	15.36%
Contra Costa	8,475	$2.5 billion	6.6%	13.0%	15.7%
Kern	6,853	$1.4 billion	9.43%	11.4%	13.62%
Ventura	6,840	$2.1 billion	7.2%	12.9%	14.8%
Fresno	5,899	$1.3 billion	8.4%	11.8%	14.0%
San Joaquin	4,835	$1.3 billion	7.93%	10.17%	13.71%
Santa Barbara	4,500	$1.2 billion	6.7%	12.1%	14.5%
San Mateo	4,400	$1.2 billion	6.8%	10.5%	15.3%
Stanislaus	4,281	$900 million	6.58%	10.86%	13.49%
Sonoma	4,236	$928 million	8.78%	12.92%	15.81%
Marin	2,885	$955 million	10.7%	12.7%	15.2%

So lets add the total for our 16 Counties in two areas and see what we get. Participants for all 16 Counties = 214,826 and Market Value for those same 16 = 63.2 Billion dollars . Than if we divide participants by members we get Assets Per Member @ 294,191 WOW That is almost 1 Million dollars in assets for every 3 participates. Now if that assets per member figure seems like I am not presenting fact here than think about this. In the 2000/2001  California State Controllers audit of the pension funds the LACERA fund reported assets per member @ 252,917.$ and thats documented.

I was able to find that as of 06/30/1995 the LACERA pension had a value of just over 18 billion dollars. Now if you look up at that chart from the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury you see that the LACERA fund was reported to have grown at an average rate of 15.7% per year from 06/95 through 06/00. So lets do some simple math and round off and see what we come up with.

1995-18. Billion X 15.7 = 20.8 Billion X 15.7 = 24. Billion X 15.7 = 27.88 Billion X 15.7 = 32.25 Billion X 15.7= 

37.89 Billion dollars in June of 2000.  An those figures I just shared do not reflect the close to 1.5 billion dollars made by the County in the form of yearly contributions. If you look between the chart above and the State Controllers reports below they are reporting between 30 and 31 Billion dollars, it seems they like to round off too. Now that little example may seem a bit simplistic to some of you and I am sorry but here is why. If the fund was 100% funded back in 06/95 and doubled over the next 5 years than I must ask you all this. Why did the funded ratio never exceed 103.3% at any point from 06/95   to 06/00? Seems to me when your fund is performing at almost twice the assumption rate for five straight years your funded ratio would reflect that achievement? The fund performance was too strong over those five years I have mentioned and the math will not allow our elected officials to get away with there fraud and corruption.

So next lets see what the  LACERA Pension reported to the California State controllers office over a 3 year period. Now when you look at each years review you will find the Actuarial Value of Assets and the Actual Present Value billions of dollars off. I tried making a mini chart so that when you print the next three pictures it will be very easy to follow along. 
Summary of Funding Position

Year

Reported.......Actuarial Accrued Liability...../Actuarial Value of Assets....../Funded Ratio 
2001 06/30/00 .. 24,730,380,000 $..... ….25,426,507,000 $ …......102.9%...
2001 06/30/00 Actual Present Value ...31,565,347,566...Investment return of 16.2%
2000 06/30/99 .. 22,784,706,000 $ .....….23,536,116,000 $ ..........103.3%...
2000 06/30/99 Actual Present Value .......28,043,306,581..Investment return of 13.8%
1999 06/30/98 ...20,959,946,000$............20,851,133,000 $.............99.5%

1999 06/30/98 Actual Present Value....25,492,178,491...Investment return of 15.4%
1998 06/30/97 ...19,383,641,334 $..........19,642,355,400 .$............101.3%

1998 06/30/97 Actual Present Value...22,854,669,909..Investment return of 17.4%
1997 06/30/96 ...17,277,650,440 $............17,724,743,800 $............102.6%




Please print the next 3 pictures so you may see first hand the contradictions of value year to year.
If you are viewing these pictures at my blog www.santabarbaracriminalcourtcorruption.blogspot.com
You may click on any one of them and they will open up to there own window so you may save print them.

 

http://www.sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD-Local/LocRep/retirement_reports_retirement0001.pdf

Under "Summary of Funding Position" we have two 1998 years being reported and no 1997. Under "Value of Assets " the growth rate between years should be between 2.8 and 5 Billion dollars based on the yearly investment return average of 15.7%

http://www.sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD-Local/LocRep/retirement_reports_retirement9900.pdf

Under " Summary of Finding Position" for the year 06/30/99 shows a value in the 23.5 Billion range, Also under Summary the year 1996 was removed? However under "End of Year Net assets held for Pension we have 31.5 Billion? an 8 Billion dollar difference.  

http://www.sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD-Local/LocRep/retirement_reports_retirement9798.pdf

Just like the year above we have a difference in value from the Summary section to the Net assets of almost 6 billion dollars. That is a full 20% difference and it it not my job to explain why. 

 Below is the location that I was able to find a true value of the pension fund as reported by Los Angeles County for June of 1995.

http://emma.msrb.org/MS121150-MS96458-MD187579.pdf

This document Verifies an 18 Billion dollar pension as of 06/30/95

The information from the bond market indicates that 54% are Retired members. The information from the State Controllers report indicates that only 34% of the LACERA pension are retired members. 

9.4 Billion dollar value as of 06/90 and grew to over 30 billion by 06/00. And even with that great growth I feel the numbers are still far to small in 2000 and tax payers have been taken advantage of by over 7 BILLION DOLLARS!!!.

      In closing we can read this report and that report but regardless once you apply the math nothing makes sense. That math will not allow for the fraud and corruption that total  Billions of dollars.