The continuing need for pension reform

For most people who work for a living, a pension is something from a bygone era. Maybe their grandparents had one. Retirement planning for the masses long ago made the move from defined benefit — meaning you know what you’re getting every month — to defined contribution, which means you know what you put in, but what you get is up in the air.

The exceptions lie in professions that are heavily unionized, where workers can jointly negotiate for better retirement plans, among other benefits. In an age of declining unionization, that often means public employees. But even then, pensions are typically considered something a person earns later in life, after working days are over.

The exception here — a subset of the subset — is police officers, who can not uncommonly retire at a prime working age. The result is someone who can often spend decades taking in a public salary — maybe a six-figure salary — long after their days on the job have concluded.

All of which brings us to the case of former New Haven police chief Otoniel Reyes, who retired earlier this year at age 49 and will now take home a pension of $117,515 a year. But he’s not done working — he left

New Haven to take the job as head of the public safety department at Quinnipiac University. His salary in that job has not been disclosed, but is certain to be a six-figure job.

Reyes is far from the first public official to make use of this system. The contracts that allowed it were fairly negotiated, and no one is taking advantage of any loophole. This is how the system is designed to work.

But we can ask whether the system needs an overhaul.

Connecticut cities are consistently strapped for cash, usually for reasons far beyond their control. And police officers take on difficult jobs that often put their lives on the line; it’s not a job that anyone should be doing in their advanced years. It makes sense for officers to retire early.

At the same time, cities need to recruit. They can’t expect to hire the best officers if other jurisdictions are offering better pay and benefits packages, including retirement allowances. If any city tried to stop offering generous pension payouts, it might find itself unable to fill any vacancies at all.

The solution is continued pension reform. The length of time officers need to serve before they can receive a pension has been extended in many communities, and it may need to be longer.

Many longtime officers are grandfathered in under earlier agreements, meaning it could be years before the effect of reforms are felt. In New Haven, anyone hired after Nov. 1, 2009, has a pension calculated only on their base wages or salary, and it can’t be more than 70 percent of that number.

Those are important steps that other communities need to consider.

Public safety is not free, but it is necessary. Making sure officers are fairly compensated is necessarily going to take a big bite out of city budgets. But it’s up to public officials to make sure they’re getting the most for their money.

The length of time officers need to serve before they can receive a pension has been extended in many communities, and it may need to be longer.