Pension Reform Fight

By Jim on May 19th, 2007

I’m not sure what to think of this except that I favor moving public employees to a 401K type system.

Union members and municipal government officials are being urged to get on the phone and pressure their senators over a retirement reform bill.
Two sides are fighting over competing plans to put the state public pension system on sturdier legs. The Senate was set to adopt a plan Thursday until a last-minute change proposed by firefighters and police derailed the bill.

Towns and school districts are urging the more aggressive of two reform plans, one that would end the flow of money into special accounts that fund health insurance subsidies and cost-of-living increases (COLAs). Joining them are the teachers and state employees unions, which say change needs to be made now to avoid more pain later.

On the other side are police and firefighters, the Strategic Alliance, who say the changes are coming too quickly and are being made on the backs of workers.

That’s what I pay into regularly and that’s what I’ll have when I retire. I don’t like these ancient pension systems like they have down in Taxachusetts that public employees seem to get. Let the public employees take their chances in the market just like those of us who work in the private sector. We don’t get these cushy pensions so why should they?

The days of them having salaries that are so much lower than private salaries are pretty much long gone. So let’s get them on a 401K type system as soon as possible.