Commissioner offers help
I would like to let the people of Fayette County know another side of our County Commissioner Sean Cavanagh and the type of person he is. My husband Gary is having major surgery and we needed someone to donate a pint of blood for him as a direct donor. I called Sean and without hesitation, he immediately asked me where he had to go and what he had to do in order to donate blood. After the information was given, Sean immediately made an appointment in Greensburg at the Central Blood Bank and took time out of his ever so busy schedule to donate blood for my husband. This means more to me than words can say because people of his caliber don’t take time out of their busy schedule to make it a point to help others when needed.
For those who are reading this, please give blood to the American Red Cross or the Central Blood Bank. Lives are depending on it. My entire family is very grateful to Sean. What else can we say but you’re a good man.
Karen O’Neil
Belle Vernon
On teachers’ pension fund
Let me shed some light on the recent controversy about Pennsylvania’s public school employee’s pension benefits.
The Public School Employees Retirement System oversees the pension fund for public school employees.
Employers, that is, school directors, contribute to that fund for school employees’ retirement, both professional and support staff, just as most employers contribute to a fund for their employees’ retirement. How much the employer contributes is based on the same factors that have affected the retirement accounts of many other people, the demographics of participants, economic conditions as per the stock market and successful investment strategies.
In the early ’80s, school districts were saddled with an assessment as high as 20 percent of payroll costs to be contributed to the retirement system. The last few years have seen it as low as 1 percent. The employee rate had been constant at 5.25 percent or 6.25 percent depending on the date of hire.
Yes, as the PSERS reels from the economic downturn and stock market failure with the rest of the nation, the districts’ cost will go up. But, it will go up because of forces in the economy that influence every investment driven fund. How, you might ask, will the fund pay for the improved benefit to teachers through the increased multiplier?
The answer is simple. Teachers will pay for it. When the legislature increased the multiplier to compute pension benefits, it increased the contribution rate of public school employees. The employee contribution rate is mandated now to be 7.5 percent.
The employer rate changes with the health of the fund. The employee rate goes up as benefits are improved.
It is the same type of pension system that affects millions of Americans.
The difference is that those pension plan members are not vulnerable to public vilification by politicians looking for an easy scapegoat or newspaper editors who choose not to examine the entire system before passing judgment.
The thousands of teachers and support personnel who labor in the fields of public education deserve more respect than that and should not be treated like robber barons for entitlements of post employment security.
Grace Bekaret, president
PAES Board of Directors
Southeastern Region