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Monday, March 15, 2004

Indiana Law - Even More on PERF Privacy

Last week the Indianapolis Star ran an editorial on "PERF privacy," criticizing HEA 1285, now awaiting action by Governor Kernan. The Star editorial said the bill would "close public employee pension records to public scrutiny." (Access the Indiana Law Blog write-up, from March 11, 2004, here.)

Yesterday this Indiana Law Blog entry (or simply scroll down), titled "More on PERF Privacy and the Star's Editorial," reported that actually the limits on access to most PERF records had been put in place by 2001 legislation and that HEA 1285 extended the access limits to legislators, courts and court officer, and a few others.

This front-page story today in the Indianapolis Star gets those details right. Some quotes:

"You can't provide any scrutiny to the system if everything is private," said Charles Davis, executive director of the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri. He noted that most states at least make public the amount of pensions that public employees get.

In Indiana, public records that are available shed some light on just how lucrative legislative pensions are:

• Since 1998, taxpayers have kicked in $5.5 million for legislators' pensions. The amount of taxpayer contributions has climbed as legislators earn more money -- from $715,153 in 1998 to $1.04 million in 2003. Some legislators who have other public jobs, such as that of teacher, or university employee, get an even better taxpayer-funded retirement.

• Legislators are the only public employees allowed to borrow from their retirement funds. As of Thursday, 25 lawmakers have 26 loans with outstanding balances of $523,045.

• About 200 retired and current lawmakers participate in the legislators' retirement system, with assets totaling $11 million.

• Legislators also participate in the state's deferred compensation plan, a second retirement option in which the state matches up to $390 per year. Taxpayers have kicked in $173,250 since 2000 in that plan.

* * *

The individual pension records of more than 200,000 public employees are already confidential. That law was passed in 2001. At issue are the approximately 11,800 members of five smaller funds, which cover prosecutors, judges, legislators and some law enforcement officers. These are administered by the Public Employees' Retirement Fund, and Sen. Joe Harrison, R-Attica, said he thought the 2001 law made the individual pension records of the small funds secret. But some say they aren't, which prompted Harrison to shepherd through this latest provision. "I didn't realize it wasn't covered by the law. We always intended for it to be confidential," Harrison said.

So what is the answer? As the result of the 2001 law, most PERF records are already subject to this exception to the public records law:
Fund records of individual members and membership information are confidential, except for the name and years of service of a fund member.
HEA 1285 would add legislators and others omitted to the exception. The Star's story today ends with this quote from Senator Joe Harrison:
Harrison said the legislature could consider opening up pension information so the public can see the amount of pension a lawmaker is getting. But if the General Assembly did that, he said, then "everyone's ought to be open."
Perhaps that change should be considered -- change the language in all the PERF laws to read:
Fund records of individual members and membership information are confidential, except for the name and years of service, and pension amount received, of a fund member.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 15, 2004 08:18 AM
Posted to Indiana Law