Our fellow Police & Fire public servants also are seeing the rip-off!
From John Curry, April 14, 2010
Mr. Monto makes some excellent points. I find, of particular interest, the statement about the governmental contribution to the Police & Fire Retirement System for health care to be 6.75% of the employer contribution and their healthcare premiums are sky rocketing. Just think, STRS ONLY dedicates 1% of their employer contributions (from the school boards) for teacher retirees' healthcare. 1% is a very miserable amount to be applied for healthcare, isn't it? "Our" system applies less than one sixth of your system's contribution toward healthcare!!! 6.75%, to retired educators, would look like a Godsend!
Yes, Gary, I also echo your statement, "Don’t think that our members are getting a free ride at taxpayers’ expense."
John
Guest column: Police, firefighters need cities and townships to pay what they owe
Dayton Daily News, April 8, 2010
Gary L. Monto is president of the Police & Fire Retirees of Ohio
The Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund is asking for more money from cities and townships, the employers of police officers and firefighters. Let me explain why.
When the state took over the various pension systems in 1967, the newly created Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund was underfunded by more than $400 million. Employers had not been contributing enough to the pension plan to fully pay for the benefits they had promised employees.
These employers were given a “loan” at a very low interest rate, and they had little incentive to pay off the principal. In fact, they did not even attempt to do this until a deal was struck with the legislature that allowed these cities and townships to pay only slightly more than half of what they owed the police and fire pension system.
Meanwhile, the employing cities and townships have not had an increase in the percentage they pay into the pension system since 1986. Since then, the percentages have remained the same at 19.5 percent for each police officer and 24 percent for each firefighter on their payroll.
Where else in today’s economy can you go without an increase in costs for more than 24 years?
To make matters worse, the actuaries for both the Ohio Retirement Study Council and the police and fire pension system have been telling local governments and Ohio legislators since the early 1990s that they need to increase these percentages.
This recommendation has been stated each year in the study council’s annual reports.
Now, when the economy is in a downturn and the cities and townships are having a hard time balancing budgets, these same folks are wringing their hands, saying they do not know how this could happen.
You can only ignore the problem for so long before it catches up with you.
Let’s compare our pensions to the private sector. The average retirement check is $25,700 per year. But consider also that the average private-sector retirement check — together with Social Security benefits — totals more than $26,000 per year.
Public-sector retirees are penalized by Social Security because we belong to a state pension system. Our members who do qualify for Social Security realize only 40 percent of the benefits they have earned.
Many of our members held second jobs or formed private companies during their careers and also paid into Social Security. How is this fair?
Police and fire retirees receive government-sponsored health care. But the police and fire pension system uses 6.75 percent of the employer contributions for this; the remainder of the total cost of this government health care is generated from premiums paid by retirees and investment income.
Our members have seen their government-sponsored health care costs rise nearly 800 percent in the last several years. Don’t think that our members are getting a free ride at taxpayers’ expense.
Pension pick-up is another hot-button issue. Several years ago, some employers saw this as a cost-saving measure. If they picked up a portion, or the entire amount, of employees’ contributions to the pension fund, they felt that they were able to save money by not giving pay raises.
While the employee did not see more money in his or her paycheck, the municipalities and townships could better control their budgeting process.
Last, about double-dipping: Has anyone ever looked at the number of private-sector workers who are double-dipping? I doubt that anyone has or even cares.
If the Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund is in violation of state law for not being able to fund its liabilities for 30 years, you can place the blame directly at the feet of the cities, townships and legislators who have repeatedly failed to act.
Shame on them! The pension fund can only manage the money that it has — not the money that was withheld from it.
posted by Kathie Bracy at 8:38 PM
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