Skimming the surface on problems in Metro Government

You are talking about two different things. They aren't properly contributing to the STATE system, but that isn't a system within the control of the city. Abramson cannot touch that system - it is out of his hands. He CAN control to some extent how much is paid INTO it, though, by manipulating numbers. The retirement fund ABRAMSON withdrew from is fast approaching its end, because NO ONE is being added to it. It is the "old city police fund." There are only a few people still drawing from it - long retired officers who didn't join the state system in, I think, 1986. (They gave the existing officers a choice, get bought into the state system and give up rights to the city system, or stay in the city system and not be bought into the state system. All new officers from that point were automatically in the state system. If I recall correctly, all but a few officers elected to move everything into the state system. They got a second chance a few years later, and at that point, all but 6 currently working officers decided to move into the state system.) Once they and any dependents entitled to draw from that system die, that entire fund goes completely back to the city - it can't be spent any other way. If it went belly-up today, the city would still be legally responsible to continue to pay out the defined benefits. It is a defined benefit plan, no matter how much is in it, the recipients only get a specific amount, never any more. There could be a million dollars in it, but the recipients will still only get X amount every month. (The old fire retirement system was set up differently, their members can get, in effect, an annual bonus payment based upon how much money is in it.) He didn't make the withdrawal properly, there were technical errors, but he didn't withdraw from it illegally.

As for state retirement, that's an issue the state really needs to fight, I agree. I'm in that system too and it is to my best interest to keep it solvent. 18 years non haz.