DeKalb County commissioners will consider later this month whether to spent $9 million annually over the next five years to bolster the county's pension fund.
“The proposal is a long-term strategy to strengthen and stabilize the employee pension fund and ensure financial integrity in the fund going forward," DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond said in a statement.
"Our pension fund is not in crisis," Thurmond told DeKalb County commissioners during a meeting on Tuesday morning. But he said the county was "taking a different approach ... in terms of creating more transparency."
Larry Jacobs, the county's Deputy Director of Finance and Risk Management, said the additional funding was part of a long-term plan to pay off pension liabilities over time. In a presentation to county commissioners, he said pension plan contributions by county employees went from 12.5 percent of pay to 1 percent of pay in the late 1990s. "The reduced contributions were not sufficient to pay for new benefits earned each year, resulting in depletion of the overfunded position. Additionally, significant changes were occurring in the investment markets," the presentation said.
