According to the El Paso Times a city representative recently questioned the situation at The El Paso Firemen and Policeman’s Pension Fund.
She asked “How do you get $400 million to save your fund and four years later we find ourselves in the same situation?” … “The fund says it’s spending more money than it is taking in. To me that’s bad management or mismanagement.”
We finally agree on something!
If only the city representative would apply that same standard to what she is doing to us at the city.
The city manager says she doesn’t know.
The Times wrote that the city manager has ordered an audit of the fund. “They say it’s bad stock markets or poor return on investment that got them here.” “Quite frankly I’m not so sure. We need to review everything and find out what the problem is.”
If the fund has money invested in the stock market it would be hard for them not to have benefited from the spectacular gains of the last two years.
Pension board like city council?
One of the pension board members is the city’s chief financial officer. Shouldn’t that person know what is going on? Why is the city manager in the dark on this? How can the city possibly not know what the problem is? If the chief financial officer is genuinely surprised about the fund director’s sudden resignation should we be comfortable? Is the pension board like city council in that they just rubber stamp what staff wants?
Do these people know anything about governance?
Well it appears that the Times got the job done for the city. They helped pressure the fund director to quit. In What is thy bidding my master? the Times turned up the heat on the fund director when they questioned why the fund would want to save money by buying a building instead of renting their office space. Go figure! He resignation on Wednesday was because of “unwarranted criticism” according to the board chairman.
We deserve better.
Brutus
elpasospeak 
How dare you report such trivial information, like money being wasted. Don’t you know that you’re supposed to drone-on about a Rep. having one to many appletinis, like the idiots that make up the other 915 bloggers?
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Is it just me or is it ironic that our City Council and manager think they are in a position to give anyone advice about managing costs related to office space? It’s like the blind leading the blind.
The TIMES might have helped to nudge Stanton out the door, but I am still baffled that he was ever hired given his problems at his previous place of employment. I guess the thought was that if he was guilty of improprieties at his previous place of employment, he would likely be a good fit here in El Paso.
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The city staffers that sit on the police/fire pension board are in the minority voting block. Police & Fire have more reps – therefore they can out-vote anyone that might raise concerns or objections.
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Joyce knew. Her emails betray her
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