{"id":24094,"date":"2010-12-07T07:38:32","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T14:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=24094"},"modified":"2010-12-07T13:46:36","modified_gmt":"2010-12-07T20:46:36","slug":"apply-retirement-changes-to-new-members-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/12\/apply-retirement-changes-to-new-members-only\/","title":{"rendered":"Apply retirement changes to new members only"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

(Full disclosure: My wife is an ERB member.)<\/em><\/p>\n

My dad worked for state government in New Mexico for 25 years. He planned for both the day he could retire and the amount of\u00a0retirement\u00a0he would receive. Toward the end of his career, he\u00a0looked forward to retirement and moving on to other challenges in life.<\/p>\n

It would have been devastating if he\u2019d been told after all of that planning that he was going to have to work years longer than he had planned. But that\u2019s exactly what the N.M. Educational Retirement Board<\/a> is considering doing to its current members.<\/p>\n

The ERB is pondering a proposal that would require its members to pay more into their retirement. In addition, and this is the worst part, unless they\u2019re three or fewer years away from retirement, they would have to work years longer than they had planned.<\/p>\n

The kicker: It\u2019s not because the ERB is in dire straits. According to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>, the ERB\u2019s executive director, Jan Goodwin, says the fund is safe for a \u201cvery long time,\u201d but she says it needs to be made solvent indefinitely.<\/p>\n

I agree that it should be solvent indefinitely. But not by breaking so critical a promise to educational employees. Not unless there\u2019s an emergency situation and no other option but to break that promise.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t appear to be an emergency.<\/p>\n

Why not exempt current members from changes?<\/h3>\n

The ERB plans to vote this week on its proposed changes, which would then go to the Roundhouse for consideration. Nothing would change without approval from lawmakers and the governor.<\/p>\n

The Albuquerque Journal has already endorsed the proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy to understand why public education employees would be upset with the suggestion they pay more into their pension funds only to retire 10 years later,\u201d the Journal wrote in a Nov. 21 editorial<\/a>. \u201cNot to make light of that concern, but welcome to the world the rest of America lives in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly, since the fund isn\u2019t solvent indefinitely, it must be changed. But why do the changes have to apply to current employees who have already planned their path to retirement? The fund is apparently solvent for decades. Why can\u2019t changes be made for new members only? Over time, the current members who drain more from the fund will no longer be receiving payments. New members won\u2019t be taking as much out.<\/p>\n

Won\u2019t most current members be gone before the fund gets into trouble?<\/p>\n

Widespread, negative effects<\/h3>\n

Changing the retirement plan for current members would have widespread, negative effects. Morale would suffer. Productivity would drop. People would learn that New Mexico can\u2019t be trusted and take jobs in other states.<\/p>\n

There are so many reasons why changing a person\u2019s retirement terms is an awful idea. I might agree with the Journal that changes should be made in spite of all those reasons \u2013 if the fund was in immediate danger.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t appear to be the case. So let\u2019s look for a solution to make the fund solvent indefinitely without breaking a promise to employees who have already planned their retirements.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The N.M. Educational Retirement Board fund doesn\u2019t appear to be in immediate danger. So let\u2019s look for a solution to make the fund solvent indefinitely without breaking a promise to employees who have already planned their retirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[118,107],"class_list":["post-24094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-economy","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}