Pittsburgh Pension "Fix" Creates $13 Million Budget Hole

It's not good news that the City of Pittsburgh has again made the news with another article in Bloomberg pointing out the issues surrounding the City Council's recent 7-2 vote to divert funds from parking tax receipts to shore up a severely underfunded pension plan.

The City has only about $325 million in funds set aside for a total pension liability of approximately $1 billion. Pennsylvania law requires 50% funding else the State can actually take control of the pension plan.

Also, in more not-good-news, Pennsylvania may order the city to double its $46 million annual contribution by 2015 and to raise it to as much as $160 million by 2030, according to a report prepared for the state. Exactly where does the State expect the City of Pittsburgh to come up with $46 million?

In a city of just over 335,000 residents that has experienced more population decline then every major city outside of New Orleans since 2000, you can bet that there is no appetite for increased taxes on the part of residents.

Moving $13 million from parking taxes to fill the pension liability gap will create a $13 million hole in the general budget that the mayor and city council will need to fill by either raising taxes or reducing services.  How does the City attract businesses and residents in this environment.  According to the population decline article linked to above the city is lacking new immigration and deaths having outpaced births.

To his credit, the Mayor has opposed this plan- although I am afraid to hear what his solution might be instead. 

State and Local Government Revenues Have Stabilized

The National Conference of State Legislatures has published a report State Budget Update: November 2010.  In it the NCSL says that most states and local government agencies have seen a stabilization of revenues coming into their coffers.  From the report:

an increasing majority of state legislative fiscal directors are reporting that the revenue outlook for the remaining seven months of FY 2011 looks promising. At the same time, however, most states also are forecasting significant budget gaps in FY 2012. ... Funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) have helped support state budgets since FY 2009. States will face a $37.9 billion loss in federal funds in FY 2012 compared to FY 2011, according to the Federal Funds Information for States. This is expected to make big holes in state budgets, what many state officials call the "ARRA cliff effect."

As you can see, the report also points out that without another round of ARRA funding (unlikely with the new Republican majority in the House) the holes in state budgets will widen.  Many states used accounting gimmicks in a effort to close budget holes in past years. These gimmicks were mostly intended to fix a short-term problem (budget deficits) while relying on impossible tax revenue growth to fill the budget gap in future years.  Basically, many states made budget adjustments as if the recession would last only one year and that the recovery would be immediate, strong, and long-lasting- as if the Federal Reserve and Congress would be their Viagra.

As with most drugs, the end result was a masking of the symptoms while the underlying cause of the matter (too much spending) had not been sufficiently addressed.  With ARRA ending and not coming back, State and Local governments will now have another round of addressing significant deficits in a world where tax increases are being fought tooth and nail by taxpayers.

Goldman Sachs put out report the other day that backs up the above claim. In their December 17 US Economic Analyst Report:

The ability of states to defer adjustment is waning, based on public comments from state officials and budget analyst reports. Most states have tapped rainy day funds, privatized assets, decreased pension fund contributions, delayed wage or contractor payments, and so on. While there are many possible tactics, the hardest-hit jurisdictions have already exhausted the most practical and politically attractive options, and so further budget adjustments are more likely to be made through spending cuts.

There is a lot more in that report that is worth reading including a prediction about employment growth (or lack thereof).  I don't particularly agree with their call of 3.5% GDP growth next year.  Without stimulus that would be difficult to reach. I also don't expect a recession late this year or early next but instead a long period of "muddling through" where high unemployment and slow growth becomes the norm. That is an environment where taxpayers will still fight any and all tax increases making it more incumbent on state and local officials to find ways to cut spending in a fashion that will be acceptable to taxpayers.

Here in Mt Lebanon we had seen significant reductions in Real Estate Transfer Tax revenues (which make up about 1% of the budget) and also a downward trend in Earned Income Tax (which make up just more than 5% of the budget).  Real Estate taxes are always stable since there have been no significant changes to assessed values since 2002.  These realities, however, will force a prioritization of services offered by both the Municipality and the School District until revenues begin to grow again.

Thanks for reading.

James

Municipal Bankrupcty Filings set to Soar- Updated

In 2011 we are set to see the number of municipalities filing for bankruptcy spike.  I first started posting about this in 2009 when the City of Vallejo, California filed for bankruptcy due largely to pension costs that got out of control.  A judge eventually granted Vallejo relief from its existing employment contracts with its public unions.

Now comes Prichard, Alabama who becomes the first city to default completely on its pension obligations to retired workers.  The city has sought bankruptcy protection twice and each time a judge has put obligations on the city that were unable to be met.  This time Prichard just decided to stop paying.

Lest you think these problems are half a country away, please read up on Harrisburg, PA which has decided to stop paying a loan it received for building a large garbage incinerator.  In addition to the incinerator debt, Harrisburg is coping with a $9 million deficit in the current budget. The city is considering layoffs, closing and leasing or selling a firehouse, and the selling of two fire trucks, among other measures. It has assigned volunteers to man police stations in order to have all officers on the streets. Ed Rendell stepped in to give $4.4 million to Harrisburg so they could finally make that bond payment.  Unfortunately, that is just going to delay the inevitable.  In Pennsylvania there are some very strict laws on municipalities filing for bankruptcies. For more on that read up on Act 47.  As you read that article please note that once a city enters Act 47, it pretty much never leaves.

So what does this all mean to you?  It means rising interest rates for municipalities and government entities in general.  In Pennsylvania we are slightly better off than in states where there is no implicit guarantee of the State stepping in when bond payments are missed (as was the case in Harrisburg).  However it is important to note that lenders take into account many factors when calculating interest rates to be charged to borrowers.  One of the most important factors after inflationary expectations is risk premium. See this link under "Market Interest Rates" to see all of the factors involved.

For Mt. Lebanon we have a pretty stable rating.  However, if municipal bankruptcies increase significantly across the country it will begin to impact interest rates for even the best rated government agencies.

***Update
For another perspective on the difficulty of filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy, please see this detailed article by Bond Girl.  She says that, while many municipalities will have difficulty paying the bills, it is much more difficult for them to actually enter the bankruptcy process.  This is somewhat of a contradiction to what the Meredith Whitney's of the world have been saying on TV and in the press lately.

Thanks for reading.

James

Soverign Debt Crisis and its impact here

We hear everyday about the PIIGS, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain and how their debt is going to sink their countries.  The European Central Bank (with some help from the Federal Reserve) is doing whatever it can to avoid a massive default on sovereign debt from any of those countries.

Typically the remedy to the problem of too much debt has been for the those countries to take on MORE debt either from the ECB or the IMF.  Ireland's most recent agreement with the ECB means they will get loans from the Band of England and the ECB that could total $16 billion. 


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On the email

I have been asked by a few people to post the email I sent to the Board last week regarding the solicitor contract.  Here it is:

I will not be in attendance at Monday's reorganization meeting.  My step-father has passed and I will be flying to Arizona tomorrow to help my mom with arrangements.  I should be back for the meeting on the 13th.

As for the meeting on Monday, I have been happy to see the lack of public lobbying for leadership positions that we saw last year. On the other hand, I have not been contacted by anyone that is seeking a leadership position to ask for my support. Perhaps its that you just think I wouldn't vote for anyone.  If I was at the meeting on Monday I would ask those seeking leadership the following questions:

1) Will you take a leadership role in putting a plan in place to solicit private donations for the construction of the high school? This is an idea I first brought to the Board over two years ago and no leadership to this point has been willing to make a serious effort (hire someone, go after alumni, etc) to reduce the tax impact of the High School on our residents using this avenue.  If there is as much support for the project as many of you claim, then why has this not already happened?

2) Will you ensure that the public has access to the same information that the Board does in its weekly packets?  Our community is as involved as they can be when it comes to the Board.  That is a good thing.  Too often we seem to hide behind "pre-decisional" information as a way to not share something with the public.  It's ridiculous to think that our involved public should not have access to the same information we do. How else can they ask informed questions? This idea that we can't share something like the Auditor's Report or the 5-year Forecasted Budget until AFTER we vote on something is an insult.  This sort of "pre-decisional" information can be applied to anything and everything we vote on every month.  Why share an AIU contract with the public before it is actually voted on? That is pre-decisional. Why share bids with the public before they are voted on since they are pre-decisional until after the vote as well? None of this makes sense unless the Board is actually trying to hide something from the public. And since we aren't hiding anything from the public, why make decisions that make it appear as if we are?  Share everything in the packet except for that which is confidential (attorney/client material and negotiated contracts) on the internet so that everyone has a chance to see the job we are doing.

If the people seeking leadership answered "yes" to the above, I would vote for them.

As for our solicitor contract, I have said in the past that I think it should not be renewed.  The advice given and work done by the solicitor on the Zoning Hearing lawsuit was subpar.  I would urge each board member to go back and read the briefs from all the attorneys involved in that case.  After doing so it should be clear that we need better counsel.  There was that much of a disparity in the level of preparation and work put into each of those briefs.  Regardless of my stance of not wanting to do the lawsuit in the first place, it was embarrassing to lose the way we did. I took no joy in that.  I would urge the Board to vote "no" on the contract and to put an RFP out for new counsel to start the first of next year.  This one action would also start to rebuild trust in the Board since it would show some real leadership in ridding ourselves of people/staff that give us bad advice and service.


See you on the 13th.

James

There's nothing new in there really.   I have always been an advocate of transparency and sharing packets with the public makes a heck of a lot of sense. 

Putting together a private funding campaign was part of the proposal I put together a few years ago to find a way to build a school that would impact taxes much less than the current plan does.  At the time there was a majority on the board who thought the idea was a good one. 

The above email is actually the epitome of good boardsmanship according to our own policy.  The policy asks that if a member of the board intends to vote against something then it is suggested that they also make clear what changes would need to happen to turn that vote around.  As I said in my previous post about my resignation, I received no material response to the email (there was one that suggested they were "planning on calling").  I don't think that email is unreasonable at all.

Thanks for reading.

James

If you want to be intermediately smart, read this site

Google has discovered the key to being the smartest one in the room. All you have to do is check out their Advance Search features and search websites based on "Reading Level". Your search results will be returned along with an evaluation of the overall reading level of the content on your site.

So how does this site stack up vs some others. Well, let me tell you, this site (or the old lebosbupdates site more specifically) scores at a 100% intermediate level.

 So there you go, it is completely at an intermediate level. 

How did other websites stack up?

For all you Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann lovers out there, lets see how MSNBC stacks up:

Seems like MSNBC caters to the Basic to Intermediate crowd.

Surely Google wouldn't rank FoxNews.com as being anything more than Basic, right?

Wait there has to be something wrong with the ranking system, right?  Well, as they say in the tech world, your search results never lie.

Given the ratings disparity  dissimilitude between the two cable news stations, perhaps the American audience prefers the more complex labyrinthine commentary (FoxNews) over the dumbed down dunderheaded (MSNBC) version. Hey, that's not me talking, it's Google (and a little Merriam-Webster Thesaurus).

Thanks for reading

James
P.S.- Google if you are reading this, please don't shut down my site!

It has been my honor...

It's been a good run but it is time for me to move on from the Mt. Lebanon School Board. In the past few months I have missed some meetings due mostly to travel out of the country. More often than not I find myself putting an emphasis more on my personal/work life than I am on the school board. For most of my 3 years on the Board the exact opposite was the case.

I wrote the following letter to School Board President Josephine Posti Wednesday morning:

Mrs. Posti,

It has been my greatest honor to serve the community of Mt. Lebanon in my capacity as a school director. However, it has become clear over these last few months that I will no longer be able to serve in this role going forward and I must resign my position on the Mt. Lebanon School Board effective immediately.

My time on the Board has been well spent and I am hopeful that many of the fiscally responsible messages that I have spoken about over the years will begin to take root.

Mt. Lebanon is a terrific place. The Mt. Lebanon School District is a proud one. It will take leadership and vision to maintain what has taken so long to build.

I wish you and the rest of the Board of Directors only the best.

Sincerely,


James Fraasch

So with that, it is time to move on to different things. I fully expect in the new year to do some more extensive travel to South America. In addition to that I will start my Master's Degree program at the University of Pittsburgh in 2011. So between learning Portuguese, getting my MBA, traveling to different hemispheres, raising the two best kids in the whole world, and being married to a very forgiving/understanding/patient wife, I think I will have a very full plate.

Understand that these are all choices that I have made over the last month or so. I could have delayed school or travel for some time but in the end it didn't really make sense to do so. The latest evidence of this came at the reorganization meeting (which I could not attend due to a death in my family). I was adamant about not extending our solicitor's contract due to what I believe was subpar representation during the school district's lawsuit against the Zoning Hearing Board. Via email I urged each Board member to review the work of every one of the attorneys in the case and determine if they thought our attorney provided service that was in any way comparable to either the Zoning Hearing Board attorney or that of the private citizens that joined the lawsuit. Taking time to review those documents would have proved my point. We received inadequate representation and lost the case. I received no response to the email and the vote went off in favor of the contract 8-0. That was just one example in a long line of them that I won't revisit here.

One last thing. I have to say that being elected to serve on the Board was perhaps the most humbling experience in my life. I never took your votes for granted. In the end I hope those that voted for me will always be able to say that I followed through on every one of my campaign promises; fiscal responsibility, open and honest communication, and new ideas.

Thanks for reading.

James Fraasch

The Joy of Stats

I love to share great finds on statistics and especially free markets.

Check out this video from Hans Rosling. Hat tip CoyoteBlog.



Every one of Hans Rosling's videos is a must watch and the best source for them is www.ted.com

His focus is on any statistic that has to do with world population, poverty, and health.

Thanks for reading.

James

More PSERS Hope and Hype

You may have heard recently that the Pennsylvania Senate passed HB2497. The PSBA recommended passage of the bill due to it reamortizing the liabilities of the PSERS system.

I linked to a great post on this bill back in June.

However, what you may have missed was why some of the opponents suggested voting against this bill.

Here is a snippet from The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry's John Callahan, Director of Government Relations:

Legislation to re-amortize both the Pennsylvania State Employee Retirement System’s (PSERS) and State Employee Retirement System’s (SERS) unfunded liability, allow for the smoothing of assets from 5 years to 10 years (PSERS only) and institute arbitrary collars on contribution rates was approved by the House Appropriations Committee on June 7, 2010. The PA Chamber believes this “reform” legislation would continue to defer already unaffordable costs and further underfund these plans leading to increased unfunded liabilities. According to a the Public Employee Retirement Commission (PERC) analysis this type of deferral will result in a $40 billion cost for PSERS and a $12 billion cost for SERS in order to ramp up the employer contributions over 10 years rather than over 3 years. This $52 billion burden on future generations and would do nothing to provide cost control, affordability or predictability to PSERS or SERS. Of significant note, these funding estimates are based upon the attainment of an 8% annual investment assumption.

The document with the above quote is worth a read. It makes some realistic, pragmatic suggestions for an actual fix to the current system. This house bill allows our government to continue to underfund liabilities therefore blowing a bigger bubble down the road that will be even more difficult to tackle. The frustrating thing is that in the near term, this will feel like somewhat of a fix to local taxpayers as the contribution rates to employers in the near term will be less than they need to be to fully fund the pension. This is "accomplished" at a significant cost, however. It's akin to putting a bandaid over a bullet hole.

Thanks for reading.

James

Quantitative Easing II and School Budgets

As you may know, the Federal Reserve announced yesterday another round of Quantitative Easing (QE2). The point of this QE2 is to make another attempt at "fixing" the economy.

As I posted in September 2008, this was the path that the Fed knew it was going to take even back then. Ben Bernanke has used every tool in his shed to fight deflation. The only thing more he can do is MORE of whatever he has done.

Be clear that the purpose of the QE1 and QE2 has been to stimulate asset prices, more specifically, to stimulate the stock market. One should ask whether the Federal Reserve's job is to stimulate stock prices. Here is the relevant quote from Bernanke yesterday:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said resuming large-scale asset purchases should boost economic growth through lower borrowing costs and higher stock prices and that concerns about the strategy are “overstated.”

That statement should concern everyone. Gaming stock prices is something that is far outside of the Federal Reserve's mandate.

Before I go too far off on a tangent, I want to bring this back to school budgeting. QE2 is supposed to have the effect of lowering interest rates to the point that businesses will want to go out and get a loan and expand business and hire employees.

School districts, and most other government entities, only invest their money in very safe government bonds. This means that our budget will take a hit on the revenue side since our revenues generated from our investments will go down (as it did last year).

However, if QE2 has the added effect of goosing stock prices, this could have a beneficial effect on PSERS. PSERS is counting on 8% returns in its portfolio. Any gains over 8% could have the effect of lowering future PSERS contribution rates.

It is important to note that there are a number of economists out there that are suggesting QE1 and QE2 simply are an attempt by the FED to blow another asset bubble. In this case, the bubble appears to be in commodity prices (not good for HS construction costs) and stocks (good for PSERS). The FED again is forcing people to choose between no return on safe assets or mild yield on risky assets. This necessarily punishes savers, retired folks on fixed income, and the middle-class. And when the asset-bubble bursts (think NASDAQ 2001, home prices 2007-2008) the consequences far outweigh the short-sighted, short-term benefits. As Ludvig Von Mises said:

Inflation and credit expansion, the preferred methods of present day government openhandedness, do not add anything to the amount of resources available. They make some people more prosperous, but only to the extent that they make others poorer

.

My educated guess is that QE2 will have no impact on unemployment or business activity. Money is already quite cheap. Businesses that wanted a loan, already got a loan.

Impacts on school district budgets will be difficult to judge in the near term. There will be some short term benefits (if stock prices remain elevated and that translates to lower PSERS contribution rates) but there will also be near term input price increases on raw materials (hurting us on the HS project).

The bigger problem here is the stubbornly high unemployment rate. The Federal Reserve has shot all its bullets and has not been able to make a dent in it. Until we can get people back to work, this economy will struggle through a quagmire for some time.

Thanks for reading.

James

Pittsburgh Pension Mess Makes Wall Street Journal

PSERS is not the only pension system that is seeking solutions. The Wall Street Journal has this article about the mess that is the Pittsburgh City pension.

From the article:

Pittsburgh's city council nixed a deal this week to lease its parking assets to a consortium led by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Instead, the council is proposing that the city's parking authority issue a 30-year bond and pay it off with parking-rate increases. Part of the proceeds would go to the pension plan.

Taxpayers in Pittsburgh should be absolutely outraged at the possibility of this unsustainable plan. This would mean the City of Pittsburgh would be borrowing money to pay its pension obligations. In the short term this might seem like a solution, but in the long term it will bankrupt Pittsburgh, if Pittsburgh is not bankrupt already. Floating 30-year bonds to fund liabilities without addressing the true problem of actual pension obligations is fiscal insanity. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl thankfully seems to have his head screwed on straight on this issue as he has announced that he does not support this plan.

Thanks for reading.

James Fraasch

Rise in Unemployment Rate Likely

A recent Gallup poll finds that the unemployment rate reported by the Federal Bureau of Labor and Statistics has been understating the unemployment rate. Gallup (and others) believe that shortly after the November mid-term elections the BLS will start to show the unemployment rate tick up. I am not at all suggesting this is some type of election year conspiracy, it's just that at some point the numbers cannot be managed anymore.

Please see the article by Gallup here. From the article:

Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased to 10.1% in September -- up sharply from 9.3% in August and 8.9% in July. Much of this increase came during the second half of the month -- the unemployment rate was 9.4% in mid-September -- and therefore is unlikely to be picked up in the government's unemployment report on Friday.

-----------------
The government's final unemployment report before the midterm elections is based on job market conditions around mid-September. Gallup's modeling of the unemployment rate is consistent with Tuesday's ADP report of a decline of 39,000 private-sector jobs, and indicates that the government's national unemployment rate in September will be in the 9.6% to 9.8% range. This is based on Gallup's mid-September measurements and the continuing decline Gallup is seeing in the U.S. workforce during 2010.

It is interesting that both Gallup and ADP (which tracks only private company payroll data) see the same trends. Unfortunately, these trends are not picked up by the BLS and therefore the unemployment rate will most likely face a downward adjustment after the fact. This is standard operating procedure for the BLS. They revise their numbers every January and July.

This data from Gallup (and ADP for that matter) are just another way to suggest that this has been no ordinary recession. While the NBER has said the recession ended last summer (due largely to increased government intervention), the unemployment picture suggests we still have a long way to go.

It will be interesting to see how this chart from Calculated Risk changes in the coming months. I don't think we have seen the peak unemployment rate for this recession.



At last month's Audit Finance Committee meeting we looked at our Earned Income Receipts and they have been declining for two straight years. In addition to that worrisome development, we have seen a significant decline in Real Estate Transfer tax over the past 3-4 months. At Thursday's meeting we will go over the more recent Real Estate transfer tax receipts and talk about what, if anything, the trends mean.

Thanks for reading.

James

The Recession in Pittsburgh- Allegheny Institute Policy Brief

I received this interesting update from the Allegheny Institute in my inbox this morning. It paints the current picture of the state of recession in Pittsburgh (posted with permission from the author).

Policy Brief

An electronic publication of

The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy

---

October 6, 2010 Volume 10, Number 55

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Has Recession Loosened Its Grip on the Pittsburgh Region?

Is the recession loosening its grip on the Pittsburgh area? According to the latest payroll employment data for August, the answer may be “yes”. August marked the third straight month that total private jobs showed a year-over-year increase. The August 2010 figure of just over one million jobs bests the August 2009 figure of 994,300 by more than one-half percent. This follows on the heels of small year to year increases in June and July. While relatively miniscule, these gains represent the first positive upswing in the year-over-year payroll employment since October 2008.

The seven-county area showed an increase of 5,800 total private jobs from August 2009 to August 2010. Which sectors led the growth in jobs?

Leading the way, professional and business services posted a pickup of 3,800 jobs in the August year-over-year tally. The biggest gainer in this sector was administrative and support services with a rise of 2,900 jobs. These are clerical, security, and other office administration functions. Hiring support personnel might be a signal that companies see the end of the recession and are willing to hire support staff.

Construction is also notable for meaningful job improvement with 2,000 jobs added from August 2009 to August 2010. Considering that most major projects in the area—such as the new PNC Tower and Consol Energy Center—have been completed, this increase is somewhat unexpected. It’s possible that road and bridge projects are propping up construction employment. It could be also attributed in part to construction and site preparation of Marcellus Shale gas drilling sites that use construction companies to do some of the work. While these gas drilling sites are not common in Allegheny County, they are plentiful in Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland Counties which are part of the Pittsburgh MSA.

Nonetheless, it is important to bear in mind that the 57,100 construction jobs in August are still seven percent below the 61,400 recorded in August 2008.

What has happened to jobs in the mining and logging sector of the economy? This sector, which includes coal mining as well as natural gas extraction, gained 400 jobs in August compared to the twelve month earlier level. Back in August 2005 there were 5,000 employees in this sector. By August 2010 jobs had risen by 900 —just under 20 percent. The Marcellus Shale gas formation may be a great source of employment in years to come, but the types of jobs created will be dispersed throughout various sectors such as construction, manufacturing and transportation as well as mining, making the jobs impact of the gas drilling hard to pin down with great accuracy.

Other sectors with large jumps in year-over-year employment include “retail trade” with 1,800 more jobs and “educational services” gaining 1,500. The “health care and social assistance” sector added another 1,000 people to payrolls led by 600 new jobs in “social services”. As we have mentioned in previous Policy Briefs, the social services subsector has been steadily adding jobs, growing more than 50 percent since 2000. But keep in mind that social services is very heavily dependent upon government spending and typically does not offer many high paying jobs—and therefore is not a good indicator of economic growth or labor market strength.

While some sectors showed year-over-year job gains, several sectors did not fare very well. Manufacturing continues to shed jobs as another 2,000 were lost between August 2009 and August 2010. The recent total of 84,900 manufacturing jobs is the lowest August count in at least two decades. Meantime, “financial activities” shed 1,700 jobs and the “government” sector lost 1,300 with local governmental education jobs dropping by 700.

Overall, payroll employment data seem to suggest the recession is loosening its grip on the Pittsburgh area—albeit very slowly and unevenly. Some sectors are showing signs of an upturn while others are still losing jobs or remaining flat—not an uncommon picture for the early stages of an economic recovery.

Clearly, the stability and recession resistance shown by education and health related jobs together with the huge decades long decline in the proportion of the area’s jobs in manufacturing and the absence of a housing boom have helped dampen the region’s employment losses during the current recession. Still, that is little consolation in light of the fact that employment remains well below levels reached in 2000.

More PSERS Pension Reform

I check in on Paul Fisher's blog over at PrideandPromise.com from time to time. He has been terrific on giving updates on PSERS. I headed over there yesterday only to find out that he resigned his school director seat "To regain his first amendment rights". Good to know, however, that he intends to keep the site going.

He added a great article from CapitolWire that analyzes the latest attempts to reform the Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System. There is still a lot of confusion about what is happening at this level. That article sort of sets the record straight. The fact is that there is still a lot of negotiating to get done. Some people want to pay what we owe sooner than others, but the thing to take away from the negotiations is that nobody thinks there is a magic bullet. The only thing that will significantly change the PSERS cost curve is significantly positive returns on the PSERS portfolio of stocks, bonds, real estate and other investments. PSERS projections are based on 7.5 or 8% annual returns in a diversified portfolio. Like I have said before, if someone ever promises you 8% annual returns, LOCK IT UP because it is almost impossible to do.

Thanks for reading and please be sure to check out the CapitolWire article. It is full of good info as well as all the names of the players in the PSERS reform game.

James

Taxing Something Doesn't Make it More Valuable

From an article in the Wall Street Journal:

Last year, Congress sharply increased the federal excise tax on "little" cigars—filtered, often sweetly favored products that are similar in size and shape to cigarettes.
...
Sales of products listed as "little" cigars fell by 79%.

The projected increase in tax revenues generated by this tax increase on little cigars was supposed to be used to help finance the expansion of a children's health-insurance program backed by President Barack Obama. But with the decrease in sales, the money just wont be there.

This is just common sense. Taxes create market distortions because those who would otherwise pay the taxes have an opportunity to change their behavior by buying something else (a replacement without the tax- see the story about how consumers have changed their purchasing behavior) or somewhere else where the punitive tax does not apply.

Thanks for reading.

James

PlanConD Vote

Last night I voted against accepting the Pennsylvania Department of Education's approval of PlanConD.

Part of the purpose of part D is to determine the ability of local taxpayers to actually be able to afford the debt payments associated with the construction project. Unfortunately, due to the inability of the PDE to update their forms, our PlanCon D documents reflect old and stale data. However, if we understand the intent of PlanCon D, then we should be able to roll numbers forward and come up with our own calculation of affordability.

As an example, let's say you want to buy a house for $187,000. The loan officer says it should be no problem to get the loan as long as your payment stays below 35% of your monthly income of $2000. At 5% interest, a $187,000 loan would be about $1,000 a month.

You knew going into it that it would be close, that it would be a stretch to your budget to try to afford this size and price of a home. But what the heck, why not aim for the fences.

You fill out all the paperwork and you get approval from the loan officer. However, when the documents get back you realize that something seems amiss. The documents given to you that outline your debt/income ratio do not reflect the payment on the house you are about to buy. The loan officer did a calculation on your debt/income ratio WITHOUT INCLUDING THE DEBT PAYMENT FROM THE HOME YOU ARE ABOUT TO BUY. So now, even though your debt payments will exceed the loan officers' 35% income limit, you still walk out of that office the owner of a new home.

How does this work? Well, the Pennsylvania Department of Education hasn't updated their PlanCon D forms for a number of years. That means that when the District fills out its forms, it is entering in income and debt payments from past years and these numbers DO NOT reflect the reality of the current project. In fact, the PDE even changed the numbers for us to reflect an Aid Ratio that is no longer relevant and skews the numbers even more to look like the District can afford this project.

When I asked in June to have the District prepare our documents to reflect the current known information, we were given information that created even more confusion when some numbers were changed and some stayed the same.

The information to fill our these forms does exist. but it is in many different places on the PDE website. Please see the link here for a copy of the form that was voted on last night. Page D-18 is the one that deals with affordability. Based on my own analysis of the numbers, I believe the District will be very close to or even exceed what the State says is the maximum allowable budgeted local effort for this project. When you look at D-18 note that the Market Value Aid Ratio has been changed by the PDE to .4154 instead of our current .49. This has the effect of reflecting an increased aid ratio from the State when this is not the reality.

Note also in Section B that the Budgeted Local effort for this project shows a big, fat $0 since we have no debt service payments for this project in 2009-2010 (our payments start in 2010-2011). The intent of the form was to look a few years out from the floating of bonds to determine whether the District is putting too much stress on local taxpayers.

When the PDE changes the form to reflect an incorrect and artificially inflated aid ratio and then ignores actual debt payments that will come due for the project they are supposed to be evaluating, I am not sure how one can realistically evaluate whether this form should be approved or not.

That being said, if the District had made a determined effort to reflect TRUE numbers and the TRUE local effort for this project, I would have been much more inclined to vote in favor of PlanCon D.

Thanks for reading.

James

Debt and Deflation

I came across a terrific economics article written by Steve Keen at Steve Keen's Debt Watch website. The title of his article is, "What Bernanke Doesn't Understand About Deflation".

On this blog I have hit a number of times on the problem with having too much debt. On a national level people (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for one) are even saying that our debt represents a national security threat. On an economic level, economists such as Steve Keen are making the argument that the deleveraging process following a borrowing and spending boom like the one we have witnessed from 1987 to 2009 will take years to play out.

Keen argues and illustrates that:

Debt reduction is now the real story of the American economy, just as a real story behind the apparent free lunch of the last two decades was rising debt. The secret that has completely eluded Bernanke is that aggregate demand is the sum of GDP plus the change in debt. So when debt is rising demand exceeds what it could be on the basis of earned incomes alone, and when debt is falling the opposite happens.

There are a number of charts and math involved that Steve uses to prove his point. And logically, it makes sense. When you borrow, you have to pay it back. If consumers have indeed increased borrowing over the last 22 years by $34 trillion and GDP has only grown by $9 trillion, then we are in for quite a period of economic staleness, especially if the deleveraging process continues. What happens when the consumer appetite for debt goes away? Surely the GDP growth cannot be sustained.

This is what part of last year's stimulus was intended to do; stimulate aggregate demand. Since consumers have clearly and demonstrably started to become net savers instead of net spenders, the government was looking for a way to increase GDP. Any kind of government spending will have a positive impact on GDP. As I have said many times before, the problem with debt is that it needs to be paid back at interest. This payment is a tax on future production and future spending.

When you max out the amount you can borrow, the consequences are long lasting and staggering. Other, normal expenses will come under stress while a less fool-hardy approach would have produced better long-term results.

Thanks for reading.

James

New Teacher Contract Approved

The Mt Lebanon School Board last night approved a new 5-year contract with the Mt Lebanon Education Association.

Please see these links:

School District Press Release
Post-Gazette Article
Mt. Lebanon Education Association Information (information about the ratification procedure)

As I said at the meeting last night, this vote was a tough, tough call. I truly feel as if there are two realities in place at the moment. One reality is where private sector workers are doing whatever they can to remain employed. This may mean taking smaller pay increase, no increases, or reductions in pay. We are in an era of wage stagnation and teetering on wage deflation in the private sector. The reality in which our Board and negotiating team had to operate in negotiating the contract with the MLEA was one in which public sector unions have had more "traditional" wage increases. It's almost as if the recession has not hit home for these unions based on many recently settled contracts.

So how does one balance across this chasm between private and public sector union pay?

For me, it starts out by looking at the entire contract and not just the headline number. The headline number of 4.15% average wage increase per year for five years in today's economic environment seems unreasonable on the surface. And quite honestly, if it was just about this salary increase there is no way the contract would have had my support. It is beneath the surface where things start to get interesting. Here is my checklist of why I supported the contract:

1) No step or pay increase for a teacher that receives and "unsatisactory" rating. This puts us on a path to discussing merit pay, something that very few Districts across our State can say they have in their contracts. As a former union member/shop steward myself, I can tell you that this is a very significant gain for the District and a testament to the MLEA's willingness to do what's best for our students.

2) Healthcare contributions rise to 10% of total premium and employees will need to cover the difference if they choose the PPO plan (more expensive) over the HMO plan. The 10% number, while not large compared to the private sector, is towards the higher end of comparator school districts.

3) Two additional teacher days per year plus 15 minutes more per day of instructional time. The increase in instructional time will allow more teacher/student "face-time" and again shows the District's and MLEA's understanding that increased achievement should be a goal for both of us. I believe the added face time has the potential to help increase test and achievement scores and lead to better educational outcomes for all students.

4) The District has negotiated increased management rights in being able to have a say in Extra Duty Responsibilities. EDRs are an added cost to the District and being able to rein in some of the expense associated with the EDRs with result in a long-term net benefit to the District.

It is my opinion that in order to gain the rights/concessions outlined above as well as a number of other management rights throughout the contract, it was necessary to award a raise higher than I initially thought was my limit.

At the end of the day I had to ask myself whether our negotiating team did the best they possibly could at the table. Given recent arbitration awards and other recently settled teachers contracts, I do feel that this was the best we could do while maintaining a good labor relationship with the MLEA.

Thanks for reading.

James

The Higher Education Bubble

I was referred to two opinion pieces in the Washington Times today. One was from back on June 6th and the other from August 8th. Writer Glenn Reynolds talks about what he thinks is the Higher Education Bubble and what will come next.

Mr. Reynolds is suggesting that higher education is in a bubble much like housing was in 2007. Glenn offers some advice to students (don't go into debt) and colleges (don't go on spending binges).

If true, the article also talks about some interesting ramifications when/if students get priced out of college.

...a college degree is an expensive way to get an entry-level credential. New approaches to credentialing, approaches that inform employers more reliably, while costing less than a college degree, are likely to become increasingly appealing over the coming decade.

To get an idea of how much out of whack college tuition has risen, please take a look at the following chart which compares CPI, Housing Prices, and Tuition.


Click on picture for larger image.

Relative to the housing bubble, that rise in tuition is something to behold.

Thanks for reading.

James

Parent Resource Network Evening Event

As you probably already know, a passion I have outside of work/family/volunteering, is the work my wife and I do for the non-profit we started, Parent Resource Network, a 501(c)(3) non-profit company. Annually we hold a fundraiser where money raised goes directly to families with children born prematurely or with chronic illness and/or congenital disorders. This organization was founded after we had our daughter, Taylor, born 17 weeks prematurely. After spending nine full months in the Neonatal Intensive Care unit, my wife Kelly and I realized that there were a lot of families who needed a network of support to rely on during the trying time in the NICU and beyond. This is why we founded PRN in 2006; to provide direct services to families that need it. From simple things like GetGo gas cards that help with hospital commute costs to goody bags with snacks, PRN pitches in. We have also been successful in rolling out more involved programs like Bereavement Services and Palliative Care. Today we provide services to all of the hospitals in the Pittsburgh region operating a NICU.

On August 14th, Parent Resource Network will hold its annual fund raising event at the Smart House on Mt Washington. Cost to attend is only $40 and there will be a live band, silent auction items and live table games to win prizes. It is your support that keeps this organization going and allows us to have a tremendous positive impact on these families.

Please visit http://parentresourcenetwork.org for more information on the event.

If you are unable to attend but would still like to donate to our organization, please visit our website at http://parentresourcenetwork.org/giving and donate online. Your financial support would be greatly appreciated! Donation are tax-deductible.

Thanks for reading. Email me with any questions about the event.

James

July Update

The question now on many people's minds is, "Now What". Our property taxes just increased over 10% in June. The High School Project is effectively stalled until Judge James renders his ruling. We just let the cat out of the bag on the deduct alternates. We will have no tennis courts for approximately 3 years at the high school in the current design. We were recently turned away by both the Zoning Hearing Board and the Planning Board. The Board recently passed a new policy requiring many documents in our packets to be released to the public only by a majority vote of the Board or after our voting meeting. We are also having discussions regarding posting information about who is requesting right-to-know requests on the District website.

Unfortunately, these are the issues that the Board is dealing with. Most, if not all, of them could have been avoided with the proper foresight, advice, and planning. I am going to comment on the issues one at a time while keeping in mind that there are some legal issues surrounding the Zoning Hearing Board.

First, I want to update you on where we are with our property taxes. As you know, taxes were increased for the 2010-2011 school year to help pay for the high school. We floated the bonds in October 2009 in order to try to take advantage of what were historically low interest rates. As you may know, interest rates have remained at about the same level as they were in October 2009. The District has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest on these bonds. This is interest that was unnecessary as we had enough money in the bank to pay current bills for some time. Additionally, the bonds we floated were traditional municipal bonds and not the less expensive Build America Bonds. We floated the traditional bonds in order to "maximize bond proceeds" as opposed to trying to make the bond float more beneficial to the taxpayer. This was a decision I voted against as it was clear on the documentation we had on the night of the vote that the Build America Bonds would have saved our taxpayers over $2 million over the life of the bonds. Our bond advisor was given the instruction to maximize proceeds and we therefore were able to get a premium on the traditional bonds. The premium simply meant that the District was going to make payments on the bond that were higher than what the market was asking for at the time. In exchange for this higher coupon payment, bond buyers were willing to pay the District a little more (a premium) for our bonds. While this does mean we will borrow less in the second float of the bonds for the high school, this is only because we paid more than market coupon rates for the first float of bonds. These bonds accounted for a very large percentage of your recent tax hike.

Another factor in our latest budget is that it is another year in which we plan to have a reduction in students and another year in which we will not lose any staff to compensate for that reduction. You may remember from the passing of the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 budgets that I advocated for reductions in staff to compensate for the reduction in student enrollment. In fact, in the 2009-2010 budget we planned to eliminate 3 positions partially to account for this reduction in students. However, every one of these positions was added back prior to the start of the school year. As I said last year, just as we would plan to increase staff when we have an increase in students, we need to figure out how to reduce staff when we have the trickle out of students that we have seen over the past 10 years. In a perfect world we would have been able to reduce staff to account for the reduced student population. This would have had the effect reducing the overall burden of the high school project on our residents. Unfortunately, there was not enough Board support to either reduce staff or programs to help offset the tax increase for the bonds floated for the high school (the budget passed 6-2).

Here is a table of our student population:

Year	Student Population
2001	5640
2002	5597
2003	5610
2004	5551
2005	5494
2006	5441
2007	5429
2008	5423

Over 200 students lost (and counting) and we have not reduced our staffing levels. Since staffing is the single largest expense in our budget, it is important that we stay on top of exactly what we need. Otherwise, we start to raise taxes at a rate far faster than the Districts that have the ability to adjust more readily to these types of changes.

Here is an updated graph comparing our millage (municipal and school district) to some other Districts throughout the County:



What this graph shows is exactly what I talked about in my White Paper in January. We are continuing on a path to taxing our residents at a much higher rate than school districts with which we compete. A continuation of this trend will no doubt lead to some serious consequences in Mt Lebanon. We cannot expect to charge a large premium to live in our community and avoid negative consequences. At what point that happens I don't know. But I have a feeling that the point is awful close.

As of the passage of school district 2010-2011 budgets, here is a list of the millage rates for the 25 highest taxed school districts in Allegheny County:

	School District	Millage
1	Fort Cherry	118.5
2	Wilkinsburg	35
3	Brentwood	28.27
4	Northgate	27.6
5	East Allegheny	27.54
6	Mt Lebanon	26.63
7	Deer Lakes	26.25
8	South Park	25.99
9	Woodland Hills	25.65
10	Shaler	25.63
11	Sto-Rox	25
12	South Fayette	24.88
13	Penn Hills	24.81
14	Bethel Park	24.56
15	Highlands	24.41
16	Carylton	24.15
17	Cornell	24.11
18	Steel Valley	24.07
19	Riverview	24.05
20	Elizabeth-Forward	23.51
21	Baldwin-Whitehall	23.5
22	Allegheny Valley	23.46
23	West Mifflin	22.992
24	Upper St Clair	22.29
25	Plum	22.2

There we are, sandwiched between Deer Lakes and East Allegheny. No disrespect to the other school districts, but what else do we have in common with them besides these millage rates? For a District and community that wants to compare itself to other peers like Upper St Clair, Fox Chapel, North Allegheny, Bethel Park and others, is this the position in which we want to find ourselves?

Regardless of the tax hike to pay for it, the high school project itself is effectively stalled. It is public knowledge that the District went before the Mt Lebanon Zoning Hearing Board and requested two variances. One of the variances was for parking spaces and the other was for lot coverage. The Zoning Hearing Board voted unanimously against approving the variances to allow the project to move forward. The District has since appealed and is awaiting a ruling by Judge James about the status of the variance request. As I said before, there are some legal issues here that cannot be commented on until the case is over. The reality of the situation is that it is rather embarrassing for me to be in the position of suing my own Zoning Hearing Board. Both sides have "lawyered up" (the ZH Board attorney paid for by the Municipality) and we are now using tax dollars on both sides of the issue to fight a no-win situation in court.

Still sticking with the high school project, we have recently talked about a deduct alternate list. To be clear, there has already been some significant value engineering when it comes to using materials in the school. As an example, we are going to use a vinyl composite material for the flooring. This decision will result in savings based on the materials we had previously planned to use. There are a number of decisions like this that I consider to be part of the value engineering process. What the Board has started to consider on top of these types of changes is alterations to the design of the building itself. The architects and project manager are preparing more information for the Board regarding larger possible deductions to the project. These possible deductions include eliminating the second auxiliary gymnasium, altering the number of air handlers in the athletic wing, changing the scope of the renovations to the Little Theater and Auditorium, and moving the tennis courts off-site. There was even discussion about leaving some parts of these deducts alternates to be completed at a different time so as to reduce the overall cost and scope of the current project. The Board will decide in August which, if any, of the deduct alternates should be bid. Please be sure to give your feedback to the Board regarding these possible changes prior to August 9th.

Finally, there have been some recent policy changes and discussion that are of interest. In June, while I was away on business, the Board took up policy BBAA, Board Member Responsibility and Ethics. We added the following text to the policy:

Individual Board members shall refrain from publishing, distributing, releasing or disclosing any documents, records or information containing or reflecting the predecisional deliberation of the Board relating to matters such as budget recommendations, legislative proposals or any contemplated or proposed policy or course of action. This preclusion includes any research, memorandums or other documents used by the Board in its predecisional deliberations.

I would have voted against this policy. The thing is, this is how I do my job as a Director. When we get a packet that is filled with information and recommendations, it is important for me to try to understand each issue as best as I can. Often times I will seek advice outside of the District and central office when it comes to certain issues. One example would be the bond issue from October of 2009. After reviewing the information given to the Board from the central office and our bond advisor I decided to go outside of the District to get more information. I called other financial advisors to other school districts and I called friends of mine who work in the bond industry. It was these people who led me to ask our bond advisor to compare costs of both the Build America Bonds (part of the federal government stimulus package) and traditional municipal bonds. Prior to my research we had only been quoted information about traditional bonds. Armed with new information on Build America Bonds, I was able to get our financial advisor to present the BAB bonds and traditional bonds side by side for comparison purposes. The result was that the BAB bonds would have saved the District taxpayers over $2 million dollars. Unfortunately, as mentioned previously in this post, our bond advisor was ultimately given the advice to maximize the proceeds of our bond sale as opposed to maximizing the savings of the bond float to our taxpayers. The bond information that was given to the Board would have been classified as "predecisional" or possibly even "research". This means I would have been in violation of Board policy if I went outside of the Board and District to get additional information regarding items in my packet. I wholeheartedly disagree with this policy and I promise you that I will violate the policy at least once a month for the rest of my years on the Board. If I didn't then I wouldn't be doing my job as a Director. Think about this for a second. Two weeks ago we were given the State Auditor's report on the District. There was some interesting information in there on a number of topics. Our solicitor said in our discussion meeting that because we had not yet voted on the report, that it was considered pre-decisional. That means that I could technically not even talk to a neighbor about the auditor's findings about bus drivers or about the Marge Sable incident without violating board policy. I would have had to have waited until after the vote to make comment. If we withhold this type of information from the public prior to a vote, then how in the world can we expect our residents to come up to the microphone before a meeting and comment on any number of topics on the agenda? Is this the kind of board our residents expect?

The other policy that has been part of our discussions has been regarding right-to-know requests. Director Remely first suggested a few months back that we post the names of people making right to know requests on the District website. While we have had a number of right-to-know requests, I am not sure that the best way to deal with it is to post people's names online. The idea here should be figure out WHY we have so many requests and then address THAT issue. If we post the names of requesters then we are not addressing the issue, instead we are simply appearing as if we have something to hide. Posting names on the district website will end up having a "chilling effect" on our residents and may inhibit them from doing something that they would otherwise do quite freely. This action would only reinforce the idea that the Board and District is trying to hide something. Rather than taking this route it is my belief that the District and Board need to increase transparency in all things that we do. If the Board decides to follow through with this idea to post names of RTK requesters online, then it is only fair that the information requested in the RTK request also get posted online. If the District will not post this information on the District website itself, then the RTK information should get posted on a publicly available website open to all Mt Lebanon residents for review and inspection.

Thanks for reading.

James

Mt. Lebanon Real Estate Numbers

One of the interesting things about our budget for fiscal year 2009-2010 was the fact that our Real Estate Transfer Tax continued to outperform every other line item in our budget. Clearly there was something different happening in 2009-2010 than happened in 2008-2009.

Without the data I have now, I hypothesized that the number of home sales had likely increased due to the $8000 homebuyer tax credit. This was not a hard guess to make as home sales around the country rebounded once the tax credit went into effect. What I didn't know was at what price the homes were selling for.

I was able to get a summary of all real estate sold in the 15228 zip code for FY 2008-2009 and for FY 2009-2010 until May of 2010.

Here is the data:

Fiscal Year Home Sales Through May
Month	FY 2008-2009	FY 2009-2010
July	35	31
Aug	23	31
Sept	21	18
Oct	12	27
Nov	8	18
Dec	14	23
Jan	10	13
Feb	9	9
Mar	8	14
Apr	19	19
May	21	25
Total	180	228

As you can see, starting in October 2010, home sales for every month in fiscal year 2009-2010 equaled or outpaced home sales in fiscal year 2008-2009. The Home Buyer Tax Credit I believe went into effect starting in January 2009 and expired April 30, 2010.

The above data is interesting in that it shows that the number of homes sold in Mt Lebanon during this period increased by 26.7%. That's quite the jump.

The other side of the coin to this is that the transfer tax is not based on just the number of homes sold but also on the price of the home. For instance, despite the increase in the number of sales, if the average sales price had fallen substantially, then we would not have seen the increase in transfer tax receipts. Luckily, I have the average sale price data for the same time period below:

Average Sold Price Through May
Month	FY 2008-2009	FY 2009-2010
July	$ 245	$ 233
Aug	$ 204	$ 248
Sept	$ 279	$ 261
Oct	$ 196	$ 188
Nov	$ 186	$ 226
Dec	$ 166	$ 238
Jan	$ 216	$ 224
Feb	$ 220	$ 160
Mar	$ 252	$ 258
Apr	$ 214	$ 268
May	$ 234	$ 232
Average	$ 219	$ 231

As you can see above, not only did the number of homes sold increase by 26.7% but the average price of the home sold increased by 5.5%. What I find interesting is that the increase in the average price was just above the $8,000 stimulus.

There are a lot of conflicting conclusions I can draw from the above information. Or maybe a better way to say it is that the above data begs a lot of questions. Did home prices actually go up in Mt. Lebanon during this time period? If so, was it short lived due to the stimulus money? Was it simply the effect of more expensive homes being listed on the market than the year before?

There is another set of data that can help answer that last question. Below is a chart showing the average list price of a home for each of the fiscal years:

Average Active Price Through May
Month	FY 2008-2009	FY 2009-2010
July	$ 268	$ 345
Aug	$ 267	$ 337
Sept	$ 268	$ 341
Oct	$ 277	$ 310
Nov	$ 292	$ 327
Dec	$ 294	$ 342
Jan	$ 290	$ 358
Feb	$ 287	$ 341
Mar	$ 331	$ 336
Apr	$ 339	$ 339
May	$ 356	$ 350
Average	$ 297	$ 339

As you can see, the average list price of the homes on the market increased by a whopping 14.1%. So, we had more expensive homes on the market and more sales of said homes.

So what does this mean for the 2010-2011 budget that we just passed? I would expect our transfer tax receipts to drop substantially from 2010-2011. The FY 2009-2010 increase was due mostly to a number of higher priced homes on the market and higher sales volume driven by the home buyers tax credit.

As is the case with most stimulus, what the tax credit did was move demand forward. I have heard from more than one Realtor that the real estate market is extremely quiet for this time of year (and that is not just in Mt Lebanon). Those people that had planned to perhaps wait an extra year to buy a home in 2011 simply accelerated their purchase to gain the $8000 tax credit to help them buy a home in early 2010. As with the "Cash for Clunkers" program, we will see demand for home purchases decline substantially once the stimulus is removed. How long it lasts is anyone's guess.

If anyone has any additional insight to the information presented above, I'd love to hear it. If enough people email me, I would be happy to provide an update or a different perspective.

Thanks for reading.

James