PSATS Applauds DePasquale Municipal Pension Task Force

Member Group : News Releases

— On Tuesday, June 30, state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale released a report, "Pennsylvania’s Municipal Pension Challenges," which included a number of recommendations for reforming the current system.
— The following statement is from David M. Sanko, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ginni Linn, Director of Communications, Pa. State Association of Township Supervisors, Enola, Pa., (717) 763-0930 (office), (717) 805-3588 (cell), [email protected].

PSATS Applauds DePasquale’s Municipal Pension Task Force

"State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and his colleagues on the commonwealth’s Task Force on Municipal Pensions have developed fair, insightful, action-oriented recommendations that, if carried out, will help to strengthen the future of Pennsylvania’s municipalities.

"In particular, PSATS commends the task force for asking the General Assembly to exclude municipal pension benefits from the collective bargaining process. The practice, prevalent throughout Pennsylvania, has allowed third-party arbitrators to drive up the costs of pension and other post-retirement benefits in uniformed plans without taking into consideration the impact on the community and its taxpayers. Meanwhile, these generous post-retirement arbitration awards – the cherries on top of benefits already mandated by law – are driving up costs for municipalities, crippling local budgets, and increasing fears of layoffs and local government bankruptcies.

"We think the auditor general said it best about these pension reforms: ‘Continued inaction is simply not an option.’ The issues swirling around state and local pensions have been studied, and the time to act is now. Therefore, PSATS encourages Gov. Wolf and the General Assembly to embrace the task force’s recommendations as a starting point and solve our pension challenges sooner rather than later."