Paying for Bankrupting Policies
The approval of the 30 percent bonus in the early nineties was the perfect recipe to bankrupt the financially strapped local government. No one had the courage then to take a hard look at the consequence of such politically correct measure. Now we’re beginning to meet the beast’s ugly fangs.
It has given birth to a nightmarish financial mess amidst the crippling effects of the Asian flu. Yet, we treat it with inconsequence as though the NMI is blessed with an abundance of natural resources it could exploit to turn red ink into black.
But there’s this penchant to perpetuate a financially crippling policy by those who benefit from it–politicians. It’s a whirlwind of political survival as to purposely compromise local resolve into a game of financial brinkmanship. They have the gall to say it’s a bad policy but fizzle out when tasked to stand at the firing line.
We know of no other country throughout the democratic world who offer employees such generous retirement benefits. Employees are supposed to earn their retirement dues. Here, we give it out in extras (unearned) as though we have surpluses in the billions and must spend them through a very, very generous retirement program.
Reality tells us that our local coffers is literally empty. City hall can’t pay up its share of utilities to the tune of $6.8 million. It can’t even meet its obligation to the retirement fund of nearly $26 million. It can’t find money for the medical referral program requiring nothing less than $3.3 million nor could it find
sufficient funds (about $10 million) for civil service employees given salary raises nearly two to three years ago.
Policymakers ought to revisit this issue forthwith. You can no longer be so generous with tax money from private sector employees for they too deserve an equal break in benefits so grandly given as freebies to public sector employees at their expense. It’s about time that you slam the brakes and return once more to basics because you have openly allowed a form of discrimination against private sector employees through such ill-conceived policies as the 30 percent bonus.
Don’t you think that private sector employees deserve not to pay for all the misgivings you’ve granted the royal kings and queens in the public sector? When can you buckle down to consider public policies that cover everybody on an equal basis? When can you see this issue through the eyes of private sector employees? Aren’t these very policies the very triggering mechanism that promotes unproductive employees throughout the government sector? It’s time to change paradigms where you get your feet on the ground as you work on policies that grant fairness to one and all and not the current exercise of sacrificing one over the other.
