The Clarion-Ledger - 12/19/2016 Page : A003

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M E T R O & S TAT EMONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2016 THE CLARION-LEDGER clarionledger.com PAGE 3A

Lawmakers, county supervisors,mayors, school superintendents andcollege presidents should hope thatthe run-up in the stock market thatbegan after Donald Trump’s electioncontinues.

Because if it doesn’t, Mississippi’sPublic Employees Retirement Sys-tem may be asking agencies to con-tribute more to make up the publicpension fund’s deficit. That’s be-cause, after two poor years of marketreturns, the $25 billion pension fundis no longer on track to meet its long-term goals. In fact, under PERSrules, if the fund doesn’t recover bythis time next year, the board is sup-posed to seek higher contributionlevels. “We are not funded where weshould be,” Executive Director PatRobertson said. “However, we are notin a crisis. The board has a policy inplace to make sure we don’t get to acrisis.”

It’s the first major test of a plan tostabilize PERS enacted in 2011. Afteryears of changes, the plan locked inemployers to paying 15.75 percent ofpayroll for pension contributions.PERS is supposed to use the vastmajority of those contributions mon-ey to chip away at its unfunded liabil-ity — the difference between what ithas on hand now and how much itneeds to pay all current and futurebenefits. The idea was that by 2042,PERS would have enough assets tomeet 80 percent of its total liabilities.

But a projection report presentedlast week to PERS trustees showsthat right now, in 2042, PERS wouldbe only 63 percent funded. The policyof the PERS board calls for asking forlarger contributions from fundingagencies if that level falls below 80percent for two years in a row.

The projected funding level isfalling because, in the last two budgetyears, PERS investments have re-turned 3.4 percent and 1.2 percent.Both are well below the assumptionthat investments will grow by 7.75percent in the average year. Becausethe system’s income — contributionsand investment income — are beingoutstripped by pension payments,total assets fell by more than $750million in the year ended June 30.

This ugly picture could be greatlyimproved by a good year in the stockmarket. Robertson said that if in-vestments earn more than 13 percentin the current year, projections for2042 will rebound above 80 percentand PERS won’t have to ask employ-ers for more money. While 13 percentsounds like a lot, the fund has earnedmore than that in five of the last 10years. The biggest problem is thatthe last decade also includes whatmay be the worst year on record —2009 — when the fund lost 19 percentof its value in the stock market’smeltdown during the worst of therecession.

The smaller, separate pensionfund that covers the MississippiHighway Patrol is already at thepoint where trustees must ask formore money. Robertson said actu-aries want the contribution rate torise from an already-high 37 percentof payroll to 50 percent. Robertsonsaid that’s in part because the stateisn’t regularly hiring new state troop-ers, only holding trooper schoolsperiodically. Thus the number ofemployees contributing to the High-way Patrol fund has been shrinking.

Some observers have long worriedthat PERS would be a too-heavy bur-den to fund, but the politics of chang-ing pension payouts for public em-ployees who mostly don’t make verymuch money has led lawmakers toshy away from changes. Robertsonkeeps calling for patience, likeningPERS’ situation to paying down thebalance on a mortgage over decades.

“It’s going to take time to get out ofthis,” she said. “That’s where we are.”

Follow Jeff Amy of the AssociatedPress at: http://twitter .com/jeffamy.

Jeff AmyUNDER THE CAPITOL DOME

Publicpensionfund nowfaces test

Remember the old “medical tricor-ders” which became a fixture in thevarious “Star Trek” shows? Dr. McCoyand his fellow starship physicianswere constantly waving these smalldevices over their patients, doing ev-erything from scanning blood for tox-ins to mending broken bones. Whilesome of us may have believed thesedevices actually existed, they were nomore than Hollywood props, the tech-nology behind them still in the realmof science fiction.

Many futurists believe the notion ofthe medical tricorder is not only pos-

sible, but in some ways, exists now.Already, wearable devices can trackyour heart rate, respiration and esti-mate your calorie count. And in thenext few years, medical science prom-ises even more wonders. A lot of thosedevelopments will be coming throughtoday’s smartphones and their de-scendants.

But one thing that’s apparently notwithin the ability of a mobile device —at least yet — is accurately recordingyour blood pressure without usingtraditional methods. Such claims havelanded at least one company in hotwater with federal regulators.

The Federal Trade Commission hasreached a settlement with a companycalled Aura Labs Inc., doing businessas AuraLife and AuraWare, aftercharging it with deceiving customersinto thinking their “Instant Blood Pres-sure” or “IBP” app could provide blood

pressure readings that were as accu-rate as a traditional blood pressurecuff. In a $595,000 settlement with theFTC, Aura Labs settled allegations thecompany’s owner provided positivecustomer reviews for the productwithout disclosing his conflict of in-terest.

“For someone with high blood pres-sure who relies on accurate readings,this deception can actually be hazard-ous,” said Jessica Rich, director of theFTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.“While the commission encourages thedevelopment of new technologies,health-related claims should not gobeyond the scientific evidence avail-able to support them.”

According to the FTC’s complaint,Aura sold the IBP app through GooglePlay and Apple’s App Store for be-

Bill MoakCONSUMER WATCH

See Moak, Page 5A

Blood pressure app unreliable, FTC finds

NEW ORLEANS - More shrimp fishermen would have to usenets equipped with turtle escape hatches, to prevent sea turtledeaths, under proposed new federal rules released on Thursday.

The National Marine Fisheries Service wants to require moreshrimp fishermen to use “turtle excluder devices.” The devicesare metal grates that allow turtles to escape the boats’ nets.

The new rules would apply mostly in Louisiana, Mississippiand Alabama, home to a major part of America’s largest shrimpfishery in the Gulf of Mexico.

“This will allow the fishery to continue to operate and pro-duce seafood, and it will aid our path down the recovery of thesea turtle population,” said Roy Crabtree, Southeast regional ad-ministrator for the fisheries service.

Shrimp fishermen, many of whom are already subject to sim-ilar rules, have long been preparing for more turtle protections,said Acy Cooper, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association.He said his association wants to scrutinize the proposal beforetaking a position on it.

Cooper and others in the shrimp business have voiced con-cerns that the turtle excluder devices could be difficult to oper-ate safely on smaller boats that work in inshore waters.

“We know it’s coming, it’s just a matter of time,” Cooper said.“We want to make sure it doesn’t affect the guys, and we alsowant to make sure of the safety aspect of it.”

Thursday was the deadline for the federal government to pro-pose regulations to protect turtles under a settlement with theconservation nonprofit Oceana.

The proposal will be subject to a public comment processthrough mid-February.

Oceana sued the government in April 2015, arguing that the

BRAD DOHERTY/THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD VIA AP

In this 2014 file photo, Andrea Hance, Texas Shrimp Association executive director, poses with a TED, or turtleexcluder device, on board a shrimp boat at the Brownsville Shrimp Basin in Brownsville, Texas. Under proposednew federal rules released on Thursday, more shrimp fishermen would have to use nets equipped with turtleescape hatches, to prevent sea turtle deaths.

The net effect New rules for shrimp fishermendesigned to protect sea turtlesPATRICK WHITTLE AND JANET MCCONNAUGHEYASSOCIATED PRESS “This will allow the

fishery to continue

to operate and

produce seafood,

and it will aid our

path down the

recovery of the sea

turtle population.”

ROY CRABTREESOUTHEAST REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR

FOR THE FISHERIES SERVICE

See Turtles, Page 5A

The U.S. Justice Department and pri-vate plaintiffs are spurning the latest de-segregation plan from a Mississippischool district.

In court filings Friday, federal offi-cials and private plaintiffs both wrotethat they prefer the desegregation plan afederal judge ordered in May to the lat-

est plan offered by the Cleveland schooldistrict.

U.S. District Judge Debra Brown or-dered Cleveland to merge two middleschools and two high schools, with allhigh school students attending the com-bined campuses of Cleveland HighSchool and Margaret Green Junior HighSchool, which are on Cleveland’s histori-cally white west side. Both schools nowhave more black students than white stu-

dents. All middle school students wouldattend the current campus of East SideHigh School, where all but two studentsare now black.

Overall, 68 percent of the district’s3,600 students are black and 27 percentare white. Remaining students are His-panic or Asian.

The district, after years of fighting topreserve both high schools, agreed toconsolidation after Brown’s order. It ini-

tially proposed to merge all students atCleveland and Margaret Green, but theJustice Department and some black resi-dents objected, saying it was unfair thatthe black community would lose itsschools. The district now wants studentsin grades 9 and 10 to attend East Side,while those in grades 11 and 12 would at-tend the Cleveland High campus, but

JEFF AMYASSOCIATED PRESS

See Desegregation, Page 4A

No deal on Cleveland desegregation