A few days ago I blamed the slowness of new entries on mounting school work and general East Coast livin’. For the sake of giving you a taste of that wild, mayhem-filled lifestyle I now present a snippet of the final paper I’m about to turn in for Budgeting. The assignment was to examine the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) from 2008 & 2009 for the state our given state- New Hampshire in my case. Its plain riveting….

STATE PENSION SYSTEMS
New Hampshire’s pension plans fall into two categories: Basic Pension (the general disability, death, and retirement plan contributed to by full-time state employees, public school teachers and administrators, police, & firefighters) and the Judicial Retirement Plan (monetary protection plan for full-time judges of the state supreme, superior, district, and probate courts in the event of disability, retirement, or death).

For FY2008 the beginning year total pension balance (basic and judicial combined) was a little over 6 billion, while the end of year balance came to 5.6 billion. The 0.4 lost during the course of the year is attributed to several factors: first, the money being paid out to the pension recipients; second, the collateral money given to the lender on behalf of the state (the Securities Lending Collateral line item); third, according to pg 95 of the 2008 CAFR, the state lost a total of 390 million on depreciating investments.

Wow, are your eyes bleeding? No? I’m surprised. Only 9+ more pages like that and you’d have the whole thing. It’s been slow, tedious, and has given me the wonderful realization that I never ever want to do anything with public or private finances. God bless those people who do and if you’re one of them and ever need help with MPA course work that has nothing to do with math or finances, hit me up. As for the rest of you, check back in the next few days as I’ll find myself with alot of free time once I’ve finished this paper. See you soon.