FW pension fund is better

It was painful three years ago when the Fort Worth City Council worked for months to devise ways to shore up the financial condition of the city employee pension fund.

The council and the Fort Worth Employees’ Retirement Fund board learned Tuesday that the effort has helped, but the problem is not completely solved.

Under current policies and anticipated rates of return on investments, it will still take 55.7 years to pay off all of the fund’s unfunded liabilities.

As Councilman Sal Espino pointed out, that’s a long time. The good news is that it’s far better than under the old policies, when it would never have been paid off.

It’s not necessary to get that number down to zero. The fund would be fiscally sound if it could pay off its liabilities in 30 years.

“We know we have to continue to work on it,” said Mayor Betsy Price.

Some employees were not happy with the changes, but they should be glad that the fund is closer to being sound.

This story was originally published July 22, 2015 at 5:36 PM with the headline "FW pension fund is better."