Losing 84 Cents on Dollar Reveals Runaway Pensions
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The deal came together behind the doors of a Louisiana psychiatric ward. John Skannal, 74, signed a document in October 2003 authorizing the sale of land handed down through eight generations of his family.
The buyer was a statewide pension plan for municipal law officers. The fund assembled golf and real estate holdings that lost 84 cents on each dollar the police spent on them over 10 years. The losses are emblematic of a decade in which the $1.2 billion program went from fully funded to $836.3 million short of meeting future retirement obligations.