Milwaukee County trying to fix pension payout problems

 

Milwaukee County's Board of Supervisors is trying to figure out the best way to stop problems with the county's pension payouts.

In a meeting on Thursday, Supervisors dived deep into the system's shortcomings. Members of the finance and audit committee met with staffers from Baker Tilly, the company handling the audit on the employee retirement system in Milwaukee County.

The special meeting was called last minute to address problems like over and underpayment of retirees.

Earlier this week the Interim Director of Retirement Services Amy Pechacek said there was more work to be done to guarantee that retirees are getting paid correctly.

The auditors looked at files for close to 650 retirees dating back to 1955.

Staffers on the case said they had problems analyzing records because of missing files or information.

"There is a fairly significant lack of hard documentation in many cases, supporting many of the variables, so hard physical records are missing and we'll get into some of that. That doesn't mean the calculation was incorrect,” said Wayne Morgan of Baker Tilly.

The media was only privy to part of Thursday’s meeting; the Supervisors did go in to closed session.

The county says that over the next few months local leaders will address how they are going to prevent problems with pension payouts from happening.