Thank you to the Monitor editorial staff for being wise enough to print Maj. Loomis’s excellent response (Monitor Forum, March 30) to your March 27 editorial on the New Hampshire Retirement System.
There are a couple of other points to be made.
You stated that New Hampshire is among the worst funded systems in the country. However, those who rate these systems judge ours as better than most states with large unfunded liabilities because we are taking steps that are reducing that deficit. The “fixes” to the system have resulted in lowering that unfunded amount by approximately $1 billion over the last nine years despite the severe recession that damaged the earnings portion during those downturn years.
Also, you credit the Legislature with making those adjustments, but I would point out that they were mostly recommendations of the “Commission to Study the Long Term Viability of the N.H. Retirement System,” which met in 2007, that ensuing legislatures wisely heeded.
This apolitical commission consisted of representatives of all the involved parties, public employees (Group I, Group II and educators), public employers (state and municipal), retirees, public members with financial expertise, and the retirement system itself. That group of 21 included only five active legislators.
In the report they issued, they called for another commission in 10 years to examine the effects of their recommendations and determine if further adjustments are needed. That commission should be assembled in 2017 and many, especially retirees of the system, hope it will be as unbiased and productive as the first commission.
Rep. Dianne Schuett
Pembroke
(The writer is a member of the Special Committee on Public Employee Pensions.)