Background & Goals

Mission

Our primary mission is the restoration of fiscally sustainable models for local, community self-governance.  In the process, we seek reforms designed to ensure equality of opportunity between generations of Americans, and to insure that one generation shall not be entitled to live beyond their means at the expense of another.

Problem

Today, our country faces a fiscal crisis of proportions that no one could have imagined just a few decades previous.  Governments at every level have adopted spending models that are seriously disconnected from revenues and rely increasingly upon borrowing from future generations to pay for current services.  

We identify Five Key Drivers of the current problem:

1)    Policy Allowing Current Spending to be financed by Future Generations of Unrepresented Taxpayers. Public sector accounting policies governing post-employment pension and benefit contributions encourage budgeting and expenditure practices which allow current spending to be financed by future - resulting in the growth of unfunded liabilities. 

2)    Role of Public Sector Endorsements in Local Elections.  Disproportionate influence of voter behavior resulting from key public sector endorsements by local school and public safety officials, and organizations, creates the potential for local elected officials to compromise objective decision-making when it comes to annual wage and benefits negotiations.

3)    Failure of the Collective Bargaining Process to Insure Current Funding of Required Contributions.  With respect to protection of both future taxpayers and promises made to public sector employees, it is essential that actuarially-determined, current period program contributions be mandatory as set forth in requirements of the 1937 Act.  More transparency and better explanations are required to understand how the collective bargaining process has served the best interests of the employee, the employer and the taxpayer.

4)    Responsibility of Union Leadership to Require Fully Funded Annual Employer Contributions.  By virtue of their union memberships, public sector employees enjoy the advantage of representation by professional negotiators and advisors.  In addition, retirement funds of these groups are overseen and administered by Trustees appointed by the membership.  As further protection, many of these employee groups enjoy special protections afforded by conditions of the 1937 Act which was specifically enacted to provide additional employee protections of their pension assets.  Given these protections, it is all the more difficult to understand how funding for such public sector entitlement have been allowed to deteriorate to such a profound degree.  

5)     Public Apathy and Failure of Public Engagement in Local Self Governance.  Most responsible citizens somehow figure a way to manage their personal finances.  It would seem to go without saying that they would expect nothing less of their government and elected leaders.  Unfortunately, today’s circumstances are different and require a different level of citizen engagement and more active engagement in the process of public governance.    

While not alone in the world, America has arrived at this place through a combination of events reflecting unbridled growth in government entitlements and unprecedented growth in government deficit spending. Left unchecked, these forces portend an unsustainable debt which threatens our economy, the nation and future generations of American citizens.

Goal

Our long term goal with Informed Majority is the restoration of a sustainable, functioning and responsive democracy in which elected leaders are once again answerable and responsive directly to their constituents rather than the powerful, special-interest donors and politically-connected endorsers upon whom they have come to depend for campaign support and endorsements.

Achieving this goal will require an informed and highly engaged electorate. Towards this goal, our initial efforts at Informed Majority will focus on exploring the systemic origins of our current political dysfunction and their relationship to our accompanying fiscal train wreck.Our ability to explain the government’s fiscal condition, and frame the discussion in terms that are personalized and meaningful to the average citizen, will determine the success of our mission. Ultimately, the measure of our success will be a direct reflection of the involvement and participation of our volunteers and members.

Objectives

Informed Majority is devoted to one primary objective: To foster a more informed and more deeply engaged citizenry. Our initial project, Project UFO is designed to accomplish both tasks – a better informed, and a more engaged citizenry.

Key to our success is public engagement.

To get there, 

  1. 1.  We need a public that understands the nature of the problem,
  2. 2.  We need a public that is eager and willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work, and
  3. 3.  We need a project that lends focus and meaning to our efforts

Project UFO

Project "Un-Funded Obligations" will serve as the launching pad for our initial outreach.

The project satisfies all three of our initial objectives by combing the research efforts of our initial volunteers in building an informative database and compelling picture of the actual “Un-Funded Obligations” found in city after city across the nation.

Local Community Focus – Cities, Counties & School Districts

The goal of Project UFO (Un-Funded Obligations) is a consolidated and comprehensive database of existing Unfunded Obligations local, community and regional level. Existing datasets have been compiled by PEW Center for the States which summarize state level obligations, but information for local communities has been largely ignored.

The initial project will focus on unfunded OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits) liabilities included in the annual reports issued by each city, county and school district. Simply defined, unfunded OPEB liabilities represent the future value of benefits to be paid to current and former public employees and for which necessary funding has not been set aside by the employer. A longer and more detailed discussion of OPEB liabilities may be found at Commonly Used Terms and Abbreviations in Government Reporting.

Our purpose in gathering and consolidating this information is to make it more readily accessible to everyday citizens, elected leaders, agency heads, public employees and union leaders. As the result of your efforts, it is our hope that local citizens, elected leaders and public officials will be more willing to discuss the issue and work together towards a responsible resolution that works best for your community.

The project satisfies all three of our initial objectives by combing the research efforts of our initial volunteers in building an informative database and compelling picture of the actual “Un-Funded Obligations” found in city after city across the nation.

Local Community Focus – Cities, Counties & School Districts

The goal of Project UFO (Un-Funded Obligations) is a consolidated and comprehensive database of existing Unfunded Obligations local, community and regional level. Existing datasets have been compiled by PEW Center for the States which summarize state level obligations, but information for local communities has been largely ignored.

The initial project focuses on unfunded OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits) liabilities included in the annual reports issued by each city, county and school district. Simply defined, unfunded OPEB liabilities represent the future value of benefits to be paid to current and former public employees and for which necessary funding has not been set aside by the employer. A longer and more detailed discussion of OPEB liabilities may be found at Commonly Used Terms and Abbreviations in Government Reporting.

Our purpose in gathering and consolidating this information is to make it more readily accessible to everyday citizens, elected leaders, agency heads, public employees and union leaders. As the result of your efforts, it is our hope that local citizens, elected leaders and public officials will be more willing to discuss the issue and work together towards a responsible resolution that works best for your community.

 

 

Sustainable communities, like nations, do not just happen. One aim of Informed Majority is to make the connection between community-level financial conditions and the long term health of their communities. Successful communities are the product of active civic engagement and participation of their residents. We hope you will spend the time to explore our site. We welcome your questions. If you would like to learn more or become more involved, please visit our PROJECT UFO to learn more.