Is anyone out there listening?

This serves as a response to Fund chair Juan T. Guerrero’s alleged statement that our politicians should stop using the pension system to win votes. Is anyone else out there listening, or is this the straw that should be breaking the proverbial camel’s backs?

For years, the Fund has done nothing but sit back while this administration perpetually dishonors its promises to government employees to remit its fair share of their pension contributions. Recently, the Legislature enacted Public Law 16-2 to assist CUC and respond to the surging cost of fuel. The new law proposes to provide CUC with a fuel subsidy by suspending earmarked non-General Fund revenue and appropriating these funds to CUC so that it can then, presumably, pay for its fuel expenses. How the government plans to accomplish this miracle is, unfortunately, all too clear. Through Public Law 16-2, our elected representatives have approved of yet another reduction in the government’s employer contribution to the Retirement Fund. Through Public Law 16-2, the Legislature has given the go-ahead for the government to reduce its share of defined benefit plan contributions to 11 percent of employee salaries for FY 2008.

To add insult to injury, the Act then requires the difference between the reduced contribution and that required to be made by law to be deposited into a special account within the general fund, so that CUC can pay its fuel expenses and further allow the government to deliver essential services. That’s right: the Act empowers the government to use employee pension contribution’s difference between the actuarially-calculated contribution rate and the new reduced rate to pay for CUC’s fuel expenses, start-up costs and operating expenses for the Public Utilities Commission, and such additional reprogramming as the Governor thinks may be required by and for the public interest.

Wake up, government employees! Not only are you paying astronomical rates for utility services you do not receive on one end, but your pension contributions are now being diverted on the other end to the same bottomless pit that repeatedly fails to deliver. One can only wonder, in the face of four unscheduled blackouts in one day, how much longer it will take for the Fund to awaken from its deep sleep and take action on behalf of the retirees it owes a fiduciary duty to represent? Is anyone out there listening?