Image provided by: SEIU Local 503; Salem, OR
About The Oregon state employee. (Salem, Oregon.) 1944-195? | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1944)
5 The Public Employee Retirement Plan, to achieve its objective, concerns itself with the interests of the regular continuous workers who remain in the same employment for a long period of years. The retirement plan must re main flexible to meet special needs and changing circumstances. It must facil itate the removal of superannuated em ployees from active service without hardship or resistance from the em ployee. It must assist in attracting and retaining well qualified new employ ees. It must be adaptable and must meet the needs of the individual em ployee members. Mr. St. John’s conclusion is that the two plans supplement each other and that each plan separately achieves its individual objectives, but that neither employer nor employees should expect one plan to accomplish the objectives of the other. The inadequacy of the Federal plan alone to meet the needs of a State is ably pointed out in an article in the same magazine by A. G. Gabriel, Ac tuarial Consultant of Detroit, Michi gan, as follows: “ Com pulsory Retirement. Relieving the payrolls of superannuated employes, who have become hidden pensioners, is one of the important reasons why the Fed eral Government, as an employer, the several states, cities, and other poltical sub-divisions have adopted retirement plans for their employes. These plans usually provide for the compulsory re tirement of an employe at age 60, 65, or 70, depending upon the nature of his work or profession. Voluntary retirement is usually permitted prior to the time when retirement becomes compulsory. “ The old-age and survivors insurance program of the Social Security A ct does not provide for the compulsory retire ment of employes. Beginning at age 65, it provides retirement benefits only in case the employe quits working in em ployment covered by the Social Security A ct. If public employes are brought un der the provisions of the Social Security A ct, it is quite likely that when an em ploye attains age 65 he will compare the amount of his weekly pay check with the amount of Social Security benefits to which he would be entitled if he re tired and he will decide in favor of his weekly pay check. The end result will be that a city or a state will find that, in addition to paying social security taxes to the Federal Government, it will continue to have the superannuated em ployes on its active payrolls, as hidden pensioners, receiving full pay, long after they have attained retirement age. The situation will be particularly serious in the police and fire organizations of cities and states where conditions require a force of physically able young men. There are not enough desk jobs in any police department or fire department to ac commodate men past age 60. And men past age 55 are no more able to perform active police and fire duty in metropoli tan cities than men past age 40 are able to perform active line duty in our Arm y and Navy. Certainly there are excep tions, but there aren’t enough exceptions to protect property and maintain law and order.” Mr. Gabriel continues to describe the personalized individual treatm ent given employees by a local retirement system and the contribution of a public retire ment plan towards efficient govern ment as follows: “ Benefits of Retirement Plans. Public employe retirement plans provide retire ment allowances for public employes who attain retirement age, or who complete a minimum number of years of service in the employ of the governmental unit. “ A ll these benefits are administered at home, usually by a board made up of elective or appointive officials who are ex-officio members of the board, and employe members who are selected by the employes themselves. The board members who administer the public em ploye retirement plan are men and wo men who work with the employes and are available to them. This close rela tionship between the management of a public employe retirement plan and the participating employes enables a local plan to render personalized service which cannot possibly be performed on a na tional scale. The employes share equal responsibility with the employing gov ernment unit for the proper operation of the retirement plan, and out of that sharing of the responsibility comes a proper regard as to what is reasonable and what is unreasonable in the nature of benefits to be granted by the plan. Another recognized authority in this field Rainard B. Robbins, Vice-Presi dent and Secretary, Teachers Insurance and A nnuity Association of New York in a paper presented at the 1944 A n nual Conference of the Municipal Fi nance Officer’s Association discussed the coordination of individual retire ment plans with the Federal Social Se curity Act arriving at the following conclusion: (Continued on page 26) IF You Would Have Them
