Villaraigosa Gets $100K Pension

Former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s pension has been revealed. The Los Angeles City Employee Retirement System announced Wednesday that he will garner $97,380 every year for the work he did governing the city. 

Villaraigosa’s pension is to cover the 24.5 years he put in as mayor, City Council member, and state assemblyman.

Villariagosa, who is reputedly broke, was mayor from 2005-2013. Studying the facts of what transpired from two years before he took the job until he left shows how worthy he is of a pension.

1. In 2002-03, pension costs were $157 million, or 3% of total expenditures. They grew annually at a rate of 25%, racing past every other area of the city’s budget.
2. By 2012-13, the city of Los Angeles was expected to commit up to 32 cents of every dollar it spends on total payroll for its employees’ pension benefits.
3. From 2003 to 2012, the city’s pension plans’ total official funding ratio plummeted from 99.7% to 77.2%.
4. In the same period, the city’s officially-reported unfunded liability zoomed from $87 million to $9.4 billion.

Miguel Santana, Los Angeles’s chief budget officer, said in 2012 that the city would go broke if it continued its policies under Villaraigosa. But that won’t bother Villaraigosa; he’s being taken care of.