PD editorial re: public records

From John Curry, August 14, 2010

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/08/dispel_the_shadow_over_ohio_pu.html

Dispel the shadow over Ohio public pension funds: editorial

Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 14, 2010

Fifty years ago this December, the state Supreme Court said, "public records are the people's records, and . . . the officials in whose custody they happen to be are merely trustees for the people."

Someone should tell the pension systems. They collect $347 a year per Ohioan in tax money -- a grand total of $4 billion. But in recent moves as legally dubious as they are politically dim, the funds are stonewalling data requests by Ohio newspapers, including The Plain Dealer, on phony "privacy" grounds.

In fact, the newspapers are not seeking specific identifying information on the funds' 400,000 beneficiaries. But they do want to know retirees' working-years' pay, current benefits, ages, years of service and pension contributions. Among other things, such a review could detect "wild swings in [annual] pay . . . that can artificially boost retirement benefits," The Plain Dealer's Patrick O'Donnell reported Sunday.

Pension managers should know their systems have a serious image problem with taxpayers, the "public employers," who pay a plump share of the pension tab.

Rightly or wrongly, some taxpayers think the General Assembly (whose members can join the Public Employees Retirement System) has let public employee retirement plans become extremely cushy, compared with the private sector. Others think loopholes that easily could be closed -- when there's a will, there's a way -- allow some public employees to retire way too young on pensions that are way too generous.

Two Democrats, Reps. Matt Lundy of Elyria and Stephen Dyer of Green, are planning legislation to force the pension systems to disclose the data. That's commendable and, given the systems' mulishness, probably necessary.

Unless the systems let the sunshine in, there's no reason for legislators to increase taxpayers' share of pension costs -- something at least two systems (Police and Fire, and Teachers Retirement) want.

When bureaucrats seal off files from taxpayers, taxpayers should seal off their wallets.