Day: March 24, 2015

State Representative Tom Killion (R-168)  will lead a town hall on pension reform, 6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 26 in Room 101 of the Main Building of Penn State Brandywine Campus, 25 Yearsley Mill Road, Media PA 19063.

RSVP is required and can be made by emailing your name, address and phone number to DO168@pahousegop.com or by calling 610-325-1541.

There is a pension crisis. The Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS) and State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS) have huge debts. Their combined unfunded liability is $50 billion.

Given that Pennsylvania’s population — including children — is 12.8 million, this means that every Pennsylvanian is on the hook for $3,900 to cover this.

Obviously, this burden is not shared equally and those who work and own property and refrain from shopping in Delaware will pay significantly more than that.

Local school districts contribute about 8.7 percent to PSER — which has about two-thirds of the liability — so the expectation is that property taxes will rise accordingly on top  the raises caused by negotiated teacher salaries, automatic “step” increases and $136 million new edifices.

Attempts to  turn the retirement plans for state workers and local teachers into the defined contribution 401K types that most of us have, have been unsuccessful as they have been met with vicious resistance from the lobbyists and contributors with whom are representatives are more likely to associate with than, well, us.

Of course, changing things to a 401K plan now is akin to closing the sty’s gate after the pig has left.

To save our standard of living we need  outside-the-box thinking. The first thing is to demand a freeze on all salary increases for all public employees — including legislators. This also means no more automatic step increases for teachers much less negotiated ones.

Then restrict public projects to only what is necessary and require that they be done  as cost-effectively as possible. This means repealing the prevailing wage law which is estimated to add 20 percent to the cost of public projects.

The final thing will be placing a 40 percent tax on public pensions to last until the books are balanced. Note, this will not be a surtax as these are not taxed now. Oh, will this cause screams. Oh, will those getting $48,000 pensions accuse those living on a $30,000 retirement or unemployment package, or working two jobs to make ends meet, or trying to figure out how to pay for a decent college for a couple of kids or trying to cover the Obamacare health insurance hikes of “H8ing” and being greedy, mean and unfair.

The appropriate response is but two words, the last being ’em.

A good explanation of pension crisis can be found in this Allentown Morning Call article. Note that it’s from 2012.

Hat tip Delaware County Patriots concerning Killion’s pension crisis town hall

Pension Crisis Town Hall