Honor pensions or reform them?

• Reprints

Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

A hauntingly familiar theme seems to run through the panicked cries of those who call for public employee pension reform across the United States.

No, not the one that goes, “Taxpayers can’t afford to fund the pensions of others when they can’t afford to pay for their own.

The one I’m referring to is this:

Public employees have been promised security in retirement with defined benefit pensions. In return, most are not eligible to receive a Social Security benefit. They have steadfastly and consistently paid their fair share of salary into their own pension systems. But their employers — state and local governments — have chosen to be deadbeat tenants in the neighborhood of the public domain.

The bottom line is that the workers kept their promise. They put in their full workweeks, collected their salary and contributed the employee share to their defined-benefit pension funds. Now they’re being told that, yes, that was the case, but too bad.

The recent Pew Research study that places Illinois last in its funding of state employee pensions does not examine police and firefighter plans. Our plans are locally funded and administered, yet our public safety officers today face the same cries for benefit reductions as our brothers and sisters in state government.

In the case of firefighters, our members contribute 9.455 percent of salary to their pension fund. Our members do not qualify for Social Security, so our employers — cities and villages — are not obliged to pay into Social Security on behalf of our members.

Because of a loophole written into state law, local politicians are given discretionary authority to overestimate the annual investment returns on police and firefighter pension funds. Those estimates determine the employer’s contribution into the public safety pension funds.

When those estimates year after year fail to prove accurate and the funding is shorted, the pension funds for police and firefighters continue to fall further and further behind. In answer to that shortfall in funding, many local politicians across Illinois have called for drastic cuts in police and fire manpower.

The one constant theme that echoes again and again, from Rockford to Cairo and Danville to Quincy and everywhere in between is the refrain that workers paid their fair share.

The people who protect us from crime, fire, hazardous waste and assist us in medical emergencies adhere to the oath we swore when we assumed our jobs as public safety officers.

Just like other public employees who teach, patch the potholes on our interstate highways and issue drivers licenses, we kept up our end of the bargain.

We kept our promise.

So as we work to find a resolution to the pension challenges ahead, let’s not forget who has been the good citizen and who has recklessly avoided responsibility.

Let’s examine the promises and take care to understand who keeps them.

Pat Devaney is president of the Associated Fire Fighters of Illinois.