October 12, 2006

 

URGENT INFORMATION FOR RETIREES

Dear Retiree:

While the State Retirees Association has been very politically active, it has never endorsed specific candidates in an election. However, I believe this election in November is the most important in many years for retirees and active members of the State Retirement Systems. Consequently, I am writing you this letter--at my expense--not as president of the Association but as just another concerned retiree who has been actively studying issues affecting us all for a number of years. I am very worried about our future.

All of us are concerned about our retirement system and its ability to continue adding annual cost of living adjustments (COLAs) to our retirement benefits. We are also concerned about the maintenance of our health insurance and prescription drug benefits. I believe that both of these benefits could be in jeopardy if certain people are elected. Both of these systems are governed by the State Budget and Control Board which is chaired by Mark Sanford, Governor and includes Grady Patterson, Treasurer, Richard Eckstrom, Comptroller General, Hugh Leatherman, Chair, Senate Finance Committee and Daniel Cooper, Chair, House Ways and Means Committee. For the past several years there has been a 2-3 split in voting by this Board when it comes to granting COLAs and other issues affecting retirees. Mark Sanford and Richard Eckstrom have voted against us while Grady Patterson, Hugh Leatherman and Daniel Cooper have voted in our favor. The Governor and Comptroller General have voted against our interests primarily because they say there is a funding problem in the retirement system. However, the Governor, as chair of the Governing Board of the system, has taken no leadership position at all in coming up with a solution to this alleged funding problem. Instead, he has proposed several times in his budget message to the General Assembly to do away with our defined benefit retirement program and replace it with a defined contribution program with individually managed accounts and no guarantee that you would even have benefits at the end of your career. He has asked the Health Insurance program to assess the impact of doing away with the program and dividing the money up into cash payments so people could buy their own health insurance from the private sector. I don’t have to spell out to you what this would mean for the cost of insurance for retirees, the biggest users of the health insurance program. In effect, he wants to privatize our retirement and health systems.

If only one vote changes on the Budget and Control Board, I believe the vote on our issues will be 3-2 with us on the losing end. This is serious stuff! It is time we forget partisan political loyalties and vote our own best interests in this election! We must keep Grady Patterson as State Treasurer. He is a long time friend of employees and retirees. His opponent has already said he is ready to help implement the Governor’s agenda. We must gain one--and hopefully two--more votes on the Budget and Control Board by electing Tommy Moore as Governor and Drew Theodore as Comptroller General. I have personally worked many times with Moore on our issues and he has never failed to support us. He has committed to continue that. Let’s elect Robert Barber as Lt. Governor. For years he has worked with the Commissions on Aging across the state on our issues. Our current Lt. Governor is immature and dangerous to himself and others. If we can elect these people, we will have the votes to insure our benefits are maintained and inflation will not erode them to nothing. We also will have something more--political power. And we will need this to protect our systems in the future. Nobody but us really cares about our concerns--we must become proactive to insure our issues are on the table when public policy is made. Never have we had such clear choices. We must create a new Budget and Control Board. We must vote in our own best interests. Also in our best interest is to vote “Yes” for the two Constitutional amendments that affect retirees. One allows greater flexibility in investing the retirement fund in worldwide investments thus reducing volatility and the other eliminates a panel no longer necessary.

Please get out and vote in November. Please urge your family and friends to vote. Tell them why it is important to vote and create a new Budget and Control Board. For me, this election is not about Republicans or Democrats. It is about you and me (and those who follow) maintaining our health, family finances and dignity for the remainder of our years. What could be more important? VOTE!

Very sincerely,



Sam Griswold


J. Samuel Griswold, Ph.D.
1225 Methodist Park Road
West Columbia, SC 29170
(803) 796 0349

 

This open letter to members of the South Carolina Retirees Association appears with the permission of Dr. Griswold.