Dear Senator Biss.

Dear Senator Biss,

As a retired teacher, I very much appreciate your update.

Especially on this date, I am reminded of how important it is to respect our Constitution – both the responsibilities and rights it affords us. I sincerely hope your committee does, indeed “respect(s) this clause,” as you note, and does not focus on finding a letter of the law means to circumvent such an important protection.  Everything contained within our Constitution was put there for a reason.  The intent of such a guarantee is abundantly clear.

It has been very popular to blame the pension for the fiscal woes of our state.  In truth, our state’s fiscal woes emanate from our legislators allowing pension payments not
to be made for decades.  This has robbed the retirees, not only of the required payments themselves, but of the interest that would have accrued on those payments.  This has literally taken money from our pockets.  This is the cause of the state’s fiscal woes.  No one, however, has tracked the years during which the required payments were not made, and held the legislators who were in office during those times to be accountable.  Instead, it has been more convenient to blame the pension and its recipients.  This is tantamount to blaming the rape victim.

In many cases, the public is now quite willing to blame the pension recipients for the state’s financial woes.  They also seem to believe we receive health insurance free of charge, and believe we also receive social security (to which many of us have fully paid our 40 quarters, but will receive no benefit.)

But here we are.  So what do we do?

1.  We honor our Constitution.  What a terrifying precedent we set if we do otherwise.  What other rights may be taken from us by opening that Pandora’s box?

2.  We do not take away the benefits of those who have already retired, calculating their ability to so so based on a contractual agreement with the State.

3. We restructure the debt so that we can meet our obligations.  This will truly guarantee that the “sacrifice” will be shared, and not just thrown on the backs of those who are already the victims of lost revenue.  We trusted our legislators to protect us.  They let us down for decades with no consequence to themselves.

If the State then believes there is a need to restructure the pension for new employees in collaboration with the unions, that is a discussion that must be had.  New employees will have 30 years to prepare.  That is a luxury current retirees do not have.

Please do not punish us again for a crime we did not commit.  It is sadly ironic that we must depend on the very body responsible for this debacle to help us. Worse yet, we must beseech them to do so.

Thank you for your attention.  May you all be divinely inspired to do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Terri Carroll