LA could be two to three years away from the same kind of bankruptcy that Detroit faces, says Daniel Pellissler, president of California Pension Reform, a political organization dedicated to fixing California’s pension crisis.
"I think your city of Los Angeles is probably two to three years away from being in the same position that Detroit is where there is not enough money to pay the bills," Pellissler said to HuffPost Live host Jacob Soboroff Tuesday. "[LA] can't project, going forward, a stable budget because they face the same pension problems that everyone else in the country does."
Both former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Gov. Jerry Brown have pursued pension reform but Pellissler said more rigorous reform for future employees is needed.
"The only way that you can really deal with this is to change the promises that you’ve made to employees," Pellisler said to Soboroff. "We're at the place in California where many of the cities in distress could ease their pension burden if they could just change the benefits that current employees earn in the future."
"We're not talking about taking away benefits that people have earned already," he clarified. "People have property rights."
He said that some people are looking into a constitutional amendment that would allow future pension changes to be made.
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