Put the pension-fix cart before execs’-raise horse

You’ve gotta give it to the state Educational Retirement Board, which has pulled off something of a miracle.

The miracle? Getting Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration and a spokesman for the American Federation of Teachers-New Mexico to agree on something publicly, specifically that the Herculean raises being proposed for top ERB staffers are outrageous.

The Martinez administration is pledging to block the raises, calling them “highly inappropriate.” The union spokesman, meanwhile, is calling the raises tone deaf. Both criticisms are on target. Under a proposal approved by the ERB in December, four ERB executives would receive raises of between $20,000 and $75,000. The raises represent increases of between 9 and 49 percent.

Executive Director Jan Goodwin, for example, would receive a $240,000 salary, an increase of 46 percent or $75,000.

Deputy Director Rick Scroggins would be paid $179,000, a 49 percent increase or $59,000 more.

That members of the educators retirement board would sign off on such grand raises — at a time when New Mexico’s economy is still struggling and at the same time it has been announced the educators’ pension fund has billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities — defies logic. Worse yet, it’s a slap in the face to every government worker who contributes to that fund and who may well have to put in more money and get less in retirement benefits as the state attempts to shore up its pension funds toward solvency.

Mary Lou Cameron, a retired teacher and the chairwoman of the ERB, justified the raises by arguing that they’re needed so retain the best-qualified people, noting a study found ERB’s top executives are paid near the bottom compared with their peers in other states. She also argues that many investments are handled in-house, at a savings of millions. And then there’s the fact that Goodwin, who currently makes $165,000, hasn’t had a raise in three years.

But many of those higher-wage states also have higher costs of living. Handling the funds in-house has yet to make them solvent. And many New Mexicans haven’t seen a raise in much longer than three years. And even if that weren’t the case, the contention Goodwin deserves a $75,000 raise is ludicrous, particularly given the fact that our state’s median household income is about $46,000.

Perhaps we could challenge Goodwin and ERB’s other top executives to fix the pension system without gutting benefits, and then we can talk about raises.

Until then, the Martinez administration should do everything in its power to stop this disgusting display of greed.