The Milwaukee Post

September 25, 2015 • Milwaukee County Post • 9 Sanfelippo would take away public election for DPI chief To the editor: At least state Rep. Joe Sanfelippo is honest when he extols the glories of partisanship. Sanfelippo's entire career in Madison seems dedicated to serving as the partisan point man imposing Republican-preferred policies on Milwaukee County residents because they (unlike residents of the collar counties) can't be trusted to know what's best for them- selves. Thus he sponsored laws giving County Executive Chris Abele near-dictatori- al powers, including one to let Abele almost single-handedly cut the deal for the new Bucks arena, which I do support, by the way. Now Sanfelippo wants to take away the rights of all Wisconsinites to elect our super- intendent of public instruction and turn the position into another spot for Gov. Scott Walker to appoint a puppet. (Maybe Walker can find a college dropout who had been an education major.) As for his essay calling for a "completely partisan" elections board, he seems to be tai- loring his argument to appeal to low-infor- mation voters, by urging that we "follow the model of the Federal Election Commission" by having six members, three from each party, with four votes required to act. What many voters don't know, and Sanfelippo isn't about to tell us, is that the federal body has been virtually paralyzed because both sides are totally dug into their positions, so virtu- ally nothing gets done. Let's mention the real reason the Republicans want this done: They were embarrassed when the John Doe probes revealed that pro-Walker efforts got $700,000 from the mining company that Republicans obediently rewrote state laws to please. The mine never was done anyway, so nothing was lost save integrity. But the GOP and their errand boy Sanfelippo would rather you never knew about it. Bill Kurtz South Milwaukee Moore wide of the mark on Iran To the editor: Seriously, U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, dealing with Iran will bring peace? Moore could not have possibly read this agreement. More than 50 percent of the American people reject this agreement and the percentages would be higher if they knew what was in this agreement. Baseless speculation? Consider the follow- ing: 1.) Enrichment restrictions disappear in 10 years. I plan on being around in 10 years; why does our security and safety have a time limit? 2.) Under the agreement, the United States will remove designated nationals and blocked persons and entities and individuals listed on the Foreign Sanction List. How does that make us safer? 3.) We will allow Iran access to our areas of trade, technology, finance and energy. Don't we jail citizens for giving our enemies this information? 4.) If the "undisclosed" areas are ques- tioned, we must follow Iran's instructions to inspect the site. If this is a transparent agreement, there should not be "undis- closed" areas at all. Of course, they will have plenty of time to move these questionable materials to another location. (And we aren't able to monitor ourselves, we will give this to the International Atomic Energy Agency.) 5.) Do we really expect cooperation from a terror state that even during negotiations, cried "Death to America" and has four jailed Americans in prison? Moore is not representing her con- stituents supporting this agreement and is caving into a devastating quagmire. Suzanne McKinney Cudahy What would Reagan do? To the editor: The fact that the latest presidential debate was held at the Reagan Presidential Library is certainly a reflection of the appeal that President Ronald Reagan's principles hold for Gov. Scott Walker and the other Republican candidates. We were reminded that Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol to phase out ozone-deplet- ing chemicals. He took this action even before serious damage to the atmosphere had occurred. Ronald Reagan also held strong beliefs about the importance of national sov- ereignty. So how would Reagan act if he was currently the head of a small island nation whose survival is threatened by climate change and rising sea levels, even though it has contributed very little to global CO2 emissions? Might he not join the Pacific island states, which are now calling for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees because the current goal of 2 degrees isn't adequate? And couldn't one see him as a powerful and vocal leader among this group? How would the world be different if, just for a moment, we could see it through the eyes of others? Perhaps it would be easier to summon the political will to meet one of the greatest moral obligations of our generation: reducing greenhouse gas emissions enough to make adaptation possible, especially for the millions of people who are living in the most vulnerable communities. Terry Hansen Oak Creek OPINION LETTERS TO THE EDITOR By OWEN B. ROBINSON State Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, is planning to propose two changes to the Wisconsin Retirement System to help keep it solvent for years to come. Although some of the public employee union bosses are already grumbling, Stroebel's proposed reforms make eminent sense. The WRS is the primary retirement system for most of Wisconsin's state and local gov- ernment employees. It is funded by the public employee trust fund with the stated purpose of "promoting economy and efficiency in pub- lic service by facilitating the attraction and retention of competent employees, by enhanc- ing public morale, by providing for the order- ly and humane departure from service of employees no longer able to perform their duties effectively ... ." In other words, the WRS is an employee ben- efit designed to benefit the citizens by attract- ing and retaining good employees. It is not a right and it is not immune from modification as the citizens deem necessary and prudent. The first change that Stroebel is proposing is to increase the early retirement age by two years. Currently, most public employees can retire with partial bene- fits beginning at the age of 55, while police and fire- fighters can do so at the age of 50. Stroebel would increase the minimum ages to 57 and 52, respec- tively. The age to receive full retirement benefits would be left unchanged at 65. For some perspective, the retirement age for the WRS has not been adjusted for at least 34 years, while the average life expectancy for Americans has risen to almost 79 years old. That means that the statistically average retiree on the WRS could receive early retire- ment benefits for 24 years after having worked as little as 10 years. But there is more study that is needed before arbitrarily raising the age for early retirement. When an older employee retires, it makes room for a younger, less expensive employee to get a job, thus leaving the taxpay- ers paying for the retiree and the less-expen- sive employee. But older employees are also more likely to become injured or disabled, thus increasing the costs for disability and other expenses. Employee Trust Fund staff has also stated that the costs for the reduced benefits paid to early retirees are not fully cov- ered. The actuaries and accountants should spend some time analyzing Stroebel's propos- al to see if the taxpayers would actually bene- fit from raising the eligibility age for early retirement before the Legislature votes on it. I suspect the taxpayers would benefit, but there is time to make sure. The second change that Stroebel is propos- ing is simple and should be passed forthwith. Under current law, a retiree's retirement ben- efit is calculated using the three highest years of salary. Stroebel's proposal would change it to the five highest years of salary. The problem Stroebel is seeking to mitigate is where public employees manipulate the sys- tem to balloon their pension payouts. For decades, in a "take care of our own" system, some public employees would be moved to a highly paid job when they were within a cou- ple years of retirement age in order to increase the retirement payouts. By lengthen- ing the period used for the calculation to five years, it dissuades this behavior and allows for a more accurate picture of an employee's compensation level when calculating retire- ment benefits. The protectors of the status quo are already ramping up their rhetoric opposing these pro- posals, claiming they are an attack on public employees. Nothing could be further from the truth. The retirement benefits offered to pub- lic employees are generous and will remain generous if these changes are enacted. Continually adjusting employee benefits to reflect the realities of the world we live in today is the duty of our elected officials. Frankly, Republicans should scrap the entire public employee pension plan and replace it with a defined contribution plan like most other American employees have, but Wisconsin is not yet progressive enough for such positive reforms. (Owen B. Robinson is a West Bend resident whose column appears occasionally in The Milwaukee County Post. He can be reached at owen@bootsandsabers.com.) Tweaking the Wisconsin Retirement System Robinson

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