Geez folks, my initial post was only to point out that many of us have NO employer provided pension, so the public employees should still feel lucky...even with a 15% drop in pension benefits.
My personal retirement fund has lost a lot more than that.
Best wishes for the New Year.

You bend over backwards serving the public for 30 or 40 years and all the public wants to do is lash out at you. Working for the government is the most thankless job in the world. Everybody too bitter about having to pay their fair share of taxes, so they take it out on the lowly government worker.

Have to agree with Stubby with his statement even if not the tone in all cases. A public employee is, by definition, paid with tax dollars. So both the wages and pensions come from tax dollars. So what is the difference if we pay some extra in wages and force them to pay their own pension investment or pay less in wages and pay into their pension. Comes out the same. As I said in my previous post, some are imo paid too much. Same can be said in the private sector. What gets something so wound up about paying into pension for public workers is we do not have that physical product to wrap our hands around. We are not driving that car or watching that TV that we paid a company for and that company then used part of our money to pay pensions. It is a shame that many people can not see a product unless they can touch and feel it and consume it. The public sector provides many products including teaching our youth, police and fire protection, plowed roads, help in protecting the environment .... and the list goes on ... none less valuable then that car or TV. This has nothing to do with union or non-union in the public sector. This is how we get the things we want from the public sector. We pay them through our taxes -- So complain if you must because no one likes taxes but until you are ready to do away completely with all of the items I listed above just because you can not put your hands around them ... give it a break.

Emmo - OK - from a technical standpoint, since WRS members are all public employees and the source of their compensation is tax dollars, then the WRS is, by way of your interpretation, a taxpayer funded system. But by your interpretation one must conclude that the houses of public employees are taxpayer-purchased houses, and their cars are taxpayer purchased cars. So, by your logic, should the state have the right to confiscate and sell the houses, cars, and other belongings of public employees because the source of the funds that purchased those things are tax dollars?

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As for your Social Security and Medicare, you are mistaken to say you "earned" those benefits. The taxes you paid when working were paying for the benefits of those retired. The taxes I pay now are paying for your benefits. If I ever receive benefits, those will not be returns on my "investment" now in the funds, but a direct burden on those who will be working at that time. So if you are really so deeply offended by some of your tax dollars funding the retirements of others, then perhaps you should renounce your Social Security and Medicare. Otherwise, as the British would say, "Shut it!".

"Your, and my taxes fund the employers of all state and local public employees."- EMMO46 @simpleton

No they do not. You do not know what you are talking about. Get a clue, then do not get back to me.

Panama...
You said: Gee EMMO, as a retiree my guess is that your Medicare is "generously funded by taxpayers contributions". What do you think?

I think I paid a heck of a lot of FICA over the years that was deducted from my salary that was earned in private sector business.

I didn't invent Social Security or Medicare, and I was never very happy making the contributions when the money was not put into a lockbox and invested, but was instead spent.
Right now my benefits come from those still working...thank you. I have earned those benefits.
Those federal programs are a whole different type of funding system, however, and are not at all the same as the WRS, which is a holding fund which makes investments. My sentiments about state pensions are in my previous post.

Shopiereduh...
Your, and my taxes fund the employers of all state and local public employees.
The employees are paid with money that comes from taxes. All contributions to the WRS are thus funded by taxes one way or another.
My biggest gripe with the old system of union negotiations was that many unions were able to sneak in generous increases in compensation by negotiating larger contributions to the retirement fund instead of salary...then claiming (as one example) "teachers get no salary raise this year", when in fact they actually got a 4% raise in real compensation.

BTW: her state employer put in the state's portion and her portion of the retirement money over the 33 years she worked for the county. Part of her benefit package as she finally got up to $15.00 per hour after 33 years or around $30,000 per year before taxes. And there was no insurance coverage after retirement either. So, yes, there are some overpaid state workers imo especially in the higher ranks but there are also many underpaid state workers. Those were wages and benefits for her as a member of AFSCME to whom she paid 2 hours of wages per month for union dues. Just shows you can not paint any large group with one broad brush.

Workers in the WRS can fully invest in the core fund or invest partly in the core fund and partly in higher risk funds (gain more but also lose more). As markets have done well, retirement amounts were increased for existing retirees. As markets have collapsed, these increases are being taken away with the take away smoothed out over a 5 year average. One blessing: currently the pension can never go below what you retired at. In my wife's case, she has never gotten an increase in her pension so has also never gotten a decrease. She was conservative and stayed in the core fund and also retired early in 2008. Timing is everything. Actually, I have confidence that her WRS pension will remain the same for years to come and be there. I do not have the same confidence in my private pension.

Shopierehuh

I like the WRS.. Think it is a good and righteous system.
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But.. Isn't every single WRS employer 100% funded by state and federal tax dollars? Making every "employer" contribution have it's genesis from the taxpayers?
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I don't see the previous comment as a waste of air... An opinion I don't agree with? yes... But hey.. Some folks would prefer that NOBODY was paid for WORK with tax dollars... Don't know how civilization would go on.. But it's an oopinion

This WRS IS NOT "FUNDED BY TAXPAYER contributions", EMMO46. This is a fully funded retirement fund that is funded by employee and employer contributions. This is all part of our wage and benefit package. This is no more out of taxpayer wallets than your money is and actually somewhat less. You are ignorant. I could list several pages of things that taxpayers have contributed to in a roundabout way that you use. Get over yourself. What a waste of air.

"...I find it hard to feel too bad for retirees who are generously funded by taxpayers contributions."
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Gee EMMO, as a retiree my guess is that your Medicare is "generously funded by taxpayers contributions". What do you think?

But Emmo: Your Social Security is an entitlement program funded primarily by the government along with Medicare. Don't you know that all that money taken out of our checks each and every week was really the governments. All of Washington thinks so.....:)

As a retiree who lives on his own savings and benefits from over 50 years of Social Security contributions, I find it hard to feel too bad for retirees who are generously funded by taxpayers contributions.

This short article does not point out that the Core Fund is actually up 12% YTD 2012. The problem is not the investments -- the WRS is one of the top two or three pension funds in the country and has been for some time. (It is virtually the only state pension system that is fully funded to the penny.) There are actually two mathematical aspects to this problem.
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The first problem is that the fund balance available for allocation is AVERAGED over five years, so it isn't actually just this year's numbers, either, but those from 2008 through 2012. The Core Plan is up 12% as I said, but it was down severely WITHIN the five-year window. If you're down 26% one year and up 12% another year you're still down roughly 19% for those two years -- that's how averaging works out.
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The second problem is that the investments need to be distributed equally, and since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008 retirements have been higher than normal. In particular, Scott Walker's overt policy to reduce state spending has resulted in more state employees retiring, and the Act 10 cuts to shared revenue forced many municipalities and school districts to choose to reduce staff instead of raising local property taxes. All of these added retirees total up and the fund balance available to new retirees has to be divided among however many people retire that year.
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Note that this does not actually cut benefits that have already been allocated. There are different options available to retirees, but most of them to my knowledge involve selecting a type of annuity which is a set amount for either life, life of a spouse/beneficiary, or a set number of payments. This cut affects the amount that new retirees applying in 2013 will receive.
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This is also a reason that some people have been retiring -- so they get in before the next drop. We'll probably still see high retiree numbers in 2013, with a potential for the trend of annuity cuts reversing in 2014, but it depends on how much further and longer government spending cuts go. Until both cuts and investment income are back on the nominal trendline the ETF will continue to feel similar pressure.

devils advocate,

The funds investments are subject to gains-if the equities the fund managers buy produce a return on their investment-in 2008 they lost 26%. Apparently the fund is not investing in Oil, apple, walmart, gold, or any of the other myriad of opportunities that have increased dramatically. The lesson learned is there are down markets and poor fund managers. Then again, govt always expects more not less every year so I guess many of its retirees assume the same.

westorbust, I am not saying that is good either, stay the hell out of it and things would be much more stabile rather than huge swings one way or another.

"The fund’s investments are still recovering from a more than 26 percent drop in 2008. Returns are smoothed out over a five-year period."

The market has made a huge come back since the 2008 bottom. Apparently the Wisconsin Retirment System hasn't done the same. I'm not sure why that is, since the system is basically dependent on market gains.

Private business has profited heavily from government.

Eagle1, I agree

Thank you government (both parties) for interfering in private business.

And thank you President Bush for making that possible.

Thank you Wall Street for stealing the money to pad your pockets.