NCPERS News Clips

3/30/2010

News Clips for March 30th, 2010

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• State employees to protest retirement plan
  Michigan state government workers are expected to protest at the state Capitol as lawmakers continue hearings on legislation aimed at prompting more of them to retire.
• Public-sector pensions serve a public purpose
  Before ripping apart our pension system, it would serve the media and the public to remember that New Jersey's Public Employment Retirement System is not a gift from the politicians to the employees who work for government. By law, a pension is deferred compensation that accrues to its holder.
• General Assembly passes state pension reform
  A bipartisan Illinois General Assembly handed Gov. Pat Quinn a victory Wednesday, sending him an overhauled state pension system, cutting benefits for new city and state employees to save money for woefully underfunded retirement systems.
• Newton retirement board defies mayor, OK's trip
  The Newton Retirement Board has upheld a vote to send two of its members to the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems,which will be held May 2 - 6 in Las Vegas.
• New Jersey Cuts Workers' Benefits
  New Jersey adopted a slew of measures to scale back government workers' benefits, as politicians from both parties allied to tackle the state's ballooning public-pension costs.
• Time to rethink dominance of Washington's public employee unions
  In 1995, when I was president of what is now the Washington Policy Center, I sounded an alarm in a widely distributed op-ed piece about the potential budget havoc our public-sector unions could cause. Fast-forward to 2010 and our state's ability to function is completely out of balance. With a $2.8 billion budget shortfall this year and another projected $2 billion deficit next year, 60 percent of the state budget is untouchable.