Sun-Herald to PERS Study Commission: Release your recommendations prior to November 8

The Sun-Herald ran an editorial yesterday calling for the release of the PERS Study Commission's legislative recommendations prior to the November 8 elections.  Here's some of it:

The best defense of the commission, and the easiest way to quiet its critics, is for the governor to direct Mayor Schloegel to immediately release, if not the commission’s detailed findings, at least a summary of its recommendations.

That's pretty strong, coming from Commission head George Schloegel's hometown paper.

But wait, THERE'S MORE! The newly uncovered legal brief also wants to shift PERS management to private hands

I mean, really.  Who saw this coming?

Yesterday, I said that the Republican attack on PERS is nothing more than a political payback scheme designed at a national level to shift management of state pensions to private hands.  So, guess what's in that legal brief from the Mississippi Center for Public Policy?  One of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy's recommended solutions reads as follows:

New employees and all persons hired after July 1, 2007 who have not accrued eight years of time in service can be switched to a defined-contribution plan. (Savings to the State multiply: When each employee manages his own fund, PERS won’t need to employ so many investment managers. PERS added 12 managers over the past ten years to the 17 that were on staff in 2000. Switching to the defined-contribution plan would allow most of the 29 investment managers to leave PERS and find work in the private sector – perhaps advising state employees seeking to invest the funds in their retirement accounts. The State would stop paying the high salaries of several public investment managers and would stop contributing to those investment managers’ retirements.) - Page 6 (Emphasis added)

So, there you go.  Republicans would have public employees, on their low wages, hire investment analysts to tell them how to invest their money.  Honestly, haven't we done enough to bail out Wall Street?

PERS Study Commission legal brief uncovered; tells Study Commission PERS can be "substantially impaired" if so desired

Wow.

Yeah, Republicans will tell you over and over that they aren't after the 13th check, or really aren't up to anything at all with this whole PERS Study Commission. In fact, it's such a non-issue that legislators shouldn't be able to ask questions of the Study Commission's leader.

Well, guess what made its way into public view, thanks to HonorYourPromise.us?  A legal brief from the Mississippi Center for Public Policy written for the PERS Study Commission that tells the Commission it's perfectly O.K. to "substantially impair" PERS.  What's more? It actually tells them what the Legislature would need to "find" in order to shield the attack on PERS from judicial scrutiny.  Read it here and weep.

That brief brings to mind three questions:

1. Who paid for the brief? (I bet George Schloegel could tell us, if Gov. Barbour would let him testify.)
2. Who actually wrote the brief? (It just says "GW" at the end, and there's no one with those initials on MCPP's website.)
3. Who is footing the bill over at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, anyway?

Anyone think for one second that a Republican-led House would do anything other than walk in lock step with the recommendations of Barbour's PERS Study Commission?  If so, I've got some oceanfront property in Panther Burn I'd like to sell you.

Mississippi Republicans are waging a disinformation campaign about PERS

Republicans, as I mentioned earlier, are terrified of the PERS Study Commission and the effect it could have on their overall electoral success rate this November. So what's their response?

Disinformation.

For instance, some Republicans are lying to you and trying to tell you that they aren't looking to cut the 13th check.  Think I'm kidding about that?  Here's what Sen. Dean Kirby (R-Pearl) was quoted as saying in the Jackson Free Press yesterday:

Sen. Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, a non-voting member of the study commission, said that at the last commission meeting, Chairman George Schloegel said commissioners have no intention of changing anything about the 13th check.

And here's George Schloegel himself:



Do they think people won't check up on what they say?

Think the PERS Study Commission isn't after the 13th check? Think again

HonorYourPromise.us has video of Gulfport Mayor George Schloegel, head of the Barbour-appointed PERS Study Commission, saying exactly what so many PERS members are justifiably afraid of:



I can't stress this enough: if you are a member of PERS, or are concerned about the health of our state's economy, you need to be following what's going on with the PERS Study Commission. HonorYourPromise.us is a great place to do that.