Pension Reform Comes Up At Public Hearing, But Not For The Last Time

After going through the agenda for the public hearing on bills being sent to Annapolis from Carroll County Saturday, delegate Nancy Stocksdale asked if there was any other comment.

There was one.

Going through the eight items on the agenda took about 40 minutes, the one item brought up by county commissioner David Roush took about 20 minutes.

The one item was pension reform and Roush got the ball rolling when he stepped up to the mic.

"On behalf of the Carroll County commissioners you made reference that we were just at a conference of Maryland Association of counties where there was a significant amount of discussion of the issue of sharing the cost of teachers pension between the state and county governments," said Roush. "On behalf of the board, I want to express to you our desire, our position that we ask each of you not to vote on, not to vote for any measure that would transfer any portion of teacher pension cost to counties like Carroll County," said Roush.

The commissioners feel that the system is of state wide concern and not for the counties.

"We believe the system was created by the state, for various reasons that have to do with state wide nature. The state then acted through the legislate to create a level of benefit that the state now finds to be unaffordable. And we don’t see that it’s appropriate for the state to say now you pay for it. At this point we would ask you to oppose any effort to transfer these costs to county government," said Roush before sitting down.

The front table was quiet. When commissioner Robin Frazier asked to speak on the subject, she spoke about taxes and the how they are paid by the citizens. Frazier said there was a lot talk about taxes by the Maryland Association of Counties board, which she will serve on this year.

"We had the opportunity to speak with senator Miller and Bush and it sounded to me like if they shied away from passing this money down from the state on teacher’s pension that it would be a harder push on the gas tax," said Frazier. "They spoke a lot about how difficult things are at the state level and how difficult things are at the county level, but the level they didn’t talk about was how difficult it was at the citizen’s level, which is who they keep going back to get the money to balance their budgets. I did have the opportunity to speak to senator Miller in the hall and I will say the same thing to you that I said to him, and that is to remember every time you pass a penny or something down to us, your putting an extra burden on the citizen and the citizens are hanging on by their toenails. They just can’t bear it any longer,’’ she said.

When she was done, the front table of Carroll delegates and senators stirred to life and the person with the most to say was Sen. David Brinkley, a republican representing District 4. He co-sponsored a bill on pension reform last year, which wasn't passed.

His points were that something has to change and that the richer counties are using the other counties to fund their benefits.

"In last year’s proposal, one of the cornerstones of my proposal was forcing counties to share half of it," said Brinkley. "The good thing about that is it brought people to the table. People are now paying attention. I think all of us agree on the fact that the ultimate payer is the citizen. It’s OPM. Other people’s money,’’ said Brinkley.

He pointed out that the problem has been there, it’s just been passed from year to year. The economic down turn brought the issue to the front burner and it’s time to fix the problems.

"Two things happened. The markets collapsed and the value of our pension portfolios collapsed and the counties and teachers and everybody stepped in and said we need you to increase the benefits. And the legislature agree to do that. That was a mistake. So now the bills are coming due,’’ he added.

Brinkley talked about how the wealthier counties like Montgomery are paying higher salaries, but using the other counties to pay benefits like pension.

"I really don’t know where it will end up, but at least we have people talking about it. Something’s going to give and my hope and expectations is that it would be tiered, so the wealthier jurisdictions are going to have to pay more. So there is going to be a change,’’ Brinkley said.

Pension reform is one item Marylanders may hear a lot about as the general assembly starts the 2011 session Wednesday.