Bottom line for the pension reform bill currently before the Legislature: Since changes would affect only those hired into government service after Jan. 1, 2012, anyone offered employment with the state who felt they could get a better deal elsewhere would be free to turn the job down.
The fact is that in terms of retirement benefits, a state job with its promise of a guaranteed pension is, and will continue to be, a good deal. The changes approved recently by the Senate and now being considered by the House of Representatives — raising the minimum age for full benefits from 65 to 67, basing the amount of those benefits on one's five highest earning years rather than the current three — represent only a modest effort to get state's spiralling pension obligations under control. And they would not affect anyone currently working for the state.
"I truly believe that if we do not reform the system, it is not sustainable," state Rep. John Keenan, D-Salem, said last week. "Folks who were living 10 years after they retire are now living sometimes 20 or 30 years after ... We need to make some adjustments."
He's right on both counts. People are living longer, which is why the age at which those in the private sector can collect Social Security keeps going up; and some 39 other states, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, have enacted reforms similar to those being contemplated on Beacon Hill.
Nobody is proposing to deprive present employees of the benefits they thought they signed up for when they began working for the state years ago, or deny those hired in the future a decent retirement. Like the municipal health bill passed earlier this year, the bill currently before the House represents reasonable reform and should be enacted.
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