Hey Dispatch......are we a little biased against public pensions and especially Ohio public pensions?

From John Curry, March 1, 2010

Columbus Dispatch - Feb. 28, 2009

Newspaper miscast report on pensions

With each story it becomes increasingly clear that The Dispatch doesn’t support retirement security for the more than 500,000 public employees who work in Ohio. First, it ran the Jan. 3 “Good as gold” articles, a four-page spread bashing Ohio’s public pension systems, burying the fact that public employees are not eligible for Social Security, a huge gap that must be filled by the public pensions.

Now it missed the point completely on the Pew Center on the States report about public pensions in the United States (Dispatch article, Feb. 18). One only has to look at the headlines to see the bias. The Cincinnati Enquirer’s headline was “Pew Report gives Ohio pensions high marks.” The Dispatch’s was “Public pension systems reeling.”

The true success of the public pension systems in Ohio was buried in another negative story by The Dispatch. The fact is Ohio was issued the highest rating as a “top performer,” with 87 percent of its total pension costs in the bank, way above the recommended 80 percent preferred by pension experts.

And why didn’t The Dispatch use this quote from the study: “It (Ohio Public Employees Retirement System) started saving back in the 1970s, and today it is one of only six states on track to fully fund its nonpension (retiree health care) obligations. Ohio had $11.1 billion — an amount far higher than any other state.” Clearly the headline should have been, “Ohio public pensions outperform the rest.”

And in general the Pew report supported public pensions, which despite losing money in today’s poorly regulated Wall Street, still manage to be funded on average at 84 percent, 4 percentage points higher than preferred by pension experts.

It is a disservice to readers, Ohio residents and public-employee retirees to mischaracterize this report.

JOHN A. LYALL
President
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Ohio Council 8
Worthington