By Steven Greenhut in The Orange County Register

June 18, 2016

SACRAMENTO – The Orange County Grand Jury’s report on the state of the county’s pension plans painted a bleak but not unexpected snapshot of a challenging long-term fiscal situation. The Orange County Employees Retirement System touted some of the good – or, actually, less bad – news from the report, but it’s time to stop sugarcoating the problem.

Orange County’s “unfunded pension liability exploded from 2000 to 2012, going from a surplus in 2000 to a $4.5 billion liability in 2012,” according to the new report. “In January 2016 the county issued pension obligation bonds in the amount of $334 million. The numbers are huge.” Indeed they are, even though the liability fell a bit since 2012. (Those bonds, by the way, are fiscally irresponsible – similar to taking a loan to pay off credit cards.)

Read more at The Orange County Register