latest annual financial report.<\/a><\/p>\nIn the last year, the fund posted an 11.2% investment return. Meanwhile, its debt fell from $5.1 billion to $4.6 billion, according to the report.<\/p>\n
Tracy Sandoval, the CEO of SDCERA, called it a \u201cpretty significant decrease.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to grow the strength of the fund,\u201d Sandoval said. \u201cOverall, it was a very positive year from a valuation standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the 1930s, the county has operated its own fund separate from statewide pension systems like the California Public Employees\u2019 Retirement System or the California State Teachers\u2019 Retirement System.<\/p>\n
The fund serves 52,000 current and former county employees and their families, including 20,000 current employees, 23,000 retirees and 9,000 members with deferred benefits.<\/p>\n
The county pension fund has long averted the kinds of controversy courted by that of the city, where mismanagement in the late 1990s and early 2000s earned the city the nickname \u201cEnron by the Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n
But since the Great Recession, the county\u2019s fund has seen its debt increase nearly tenfold.<\/p>\n
The debt \u2014 formally called the unfunded actuarial accrued liability, or UAAL \u2014 stood at $485 million in 2008. In 2023, it peaked at $5.1 billion.<\/p>\n
With the recent reduction in the fund\u2019s debt, its unfunded liability now also amounts to a smaller share \u2014 23% \u2014 of the fund\u2019s total $19.7 billion in assets. Two years ago, the debt amounted to a third of the assets.<\/p>\n
Sandoval said the debt does not pose any significant concerns for the future of the county pension system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look to see that continued decline over time,\u201d she said. \u201cThe risk from any year is obviously the performance of the markets and depending on what\u2019s going on in the world \u2014 and I guess that would be my biggest concern, as is any other pension fund.\u201d<\/p>\n
An improving though historically high debt does pose challenges for the county, which has seen increasing budget gaps in recent years that could worsen.<\/p>\n
When the pension system\u2019s debt rises, the county has to shovel more taxpayer money into its annual contribution.<\/p>\n
Those payments have created growing strain on county coffers. In 2020, the county\u2019s contribution to the fund totaled $589 million. This year, it reached $918 million.<\/p>\n
That most recent contribution caused so much strain to the county\u2019s budget that it contributed to a $200 million deficit in the county\u2019s cash flow earlier this year.<\/p>\n
In June, county supervisors issued $200 million in bonds to patch the hole and prevent disruptions to its cash flow. Only Supervisor Jim Desmond voted against issuing the bonds.<\/p>\n
Spending for the repayment of the bond accounted for $5.4 million in the county\u2019s budget this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two decades of ballooning debt for the San Diego County pension system is cooling, with the fund lopping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,2558,983,2559,3,111,2557],"class_list":["post-323542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}