In an article entitled "Ben Barnes Unplugged" from CTNewsJunkie, outgoing OPM Secretary Ben Barnes spoke candidly about State Employee Pensions at a state budget forum on 12/13/18. Ben Barnes' view as reported in the CTNewsJunkie article:
Barnes also talked at length about the issue of state pensions. He said he felt that state workers were unfairly “scapegoated” for the problem.
He said while there are some examples of very high pensions being paid to state employees, the average state pension is about $38,000.
“Local government pensions are way better,” the OPM secretary said. He said those who work in the private sector also retire with much better pensions than the average state worker.
Besides, Barnes said, there is a moral obligation involved.
“The law of the land is that when somebody retires with a pension they have a right to that pension,” Barnes said. “We can’t renege on our deal to employees.”
He said even if there was a legal way found to tear up state pension agreements, “Why on earth would we want to do that? These are folks who are cleaning up after our elderly parents or our grandparents. The idea that we would walk away from that is reprehensible.”
Barnes said while he believes that the budget will be in good hands with Lamont in charge and the newly-elected legislature, he also said he’s worried that the 2019 budget was built with what he termed “one-time sweeps” that will create a $630 million hole that will need to be filled in next year’s budget.
Thank you, Ben...we know we are an important piece of the budget, but not the budget problem. State Employees became the target of a heavily-funded, politically-motivated campaign. That is why we were so adamant in turning out the vote and turning around the legislature; too many false-narratives and untruthful assessments, it was angering. Hopefully, some in the legislature will now focus on the real roots of the problem, not the easy target. Timely as it may be, the Comptroller's Office updated the "OpenPension" piece of the "OpenConnecticut" portal this week to incorporate up-to-date monthly pension information as opposed to the prior iteration which provided static, annual data visit OpenPension...also, the newly created Pension Stability Commission was given an extension to complete their recommendations on ways to improve the pension liability issues...and we might as well note that on December 3, 2018, Comptroller Lembo projected a $245m surplus for FY19 (which ends June 30, 2019).
Refreshing to see the State budget director acknowledge that state employees and our benefits are not the source nor the sole solution to the State's budget problems. It is refreshing to see that there are better ways to improve the semi-scientific pension liability numbers in some manner other than stripping away benefits, and it is certainly refreshing to see a surplus projected in the annual budget.
