LETTER: Public employees deserve privacy when it comes to retirement benefits
The Review-Journal has published a few articles on the Nevada Policy Research Institute’s request for personal information about retires. I have a few questions that I have not seen answered.
The money paid into the Public Employee Retirement System by an employer is instead of Social Security and pay increases. Once it goes to PERS, it is no longer taxpayer money. Why should anyone have the ability to see a past employee’s personal information? At what point does a government employee’s life become private again?
If the fund has a cash-flow problem, the state would have to solve that problem. Has any government agency had to put funds, other than employee contributions, into PERS?
A lot of changes have been made to PERS over the past few years. This has taken care of the problems that caused some excess payments. A fluid fund like PERS will need to be changed to preserve it for the future. How does knowing the name of a payee possibly make PERS better for the future?
