Small Town News

Modify employee retiree benefits proposal

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The following letter was sent to Gov. Jack Markell and members of the Delaware General Assembly, and submitted to the Cape Gazette for publication.

I am an employee with the Delaware Department of Transportation and I am writing to you to ask you to consider making a small change in the proposed modification to the state employee retiree health benefit to move the effective date out five years, or better yet, to not affect currently vested employees. As I'm sure you are aware, even when there are discussions about changes to Social Security, it is stated up front that changes will not affect those 55 and older. There is a very good reason for that. At this point in our lives (I am 55), past decisions made, right or wrong, are too late to change to address the proposed change.

In my case you are taking away the 50 percent the state will pay of my health insurance in retirement that I have already earned. Moving the 75 percent to 17-and-a-half years means I have to work two-and-a-half years longer than I had planned. That is two-and-a-half years longer of salary and fringe benefits the state will pay me. If I am replaced when I do retire, it will be at a much lower rate of pay and now benefits, so explain the savings to the state to me.

I will work the extra time, but let me give you another example that is much worse, and why the start date should be at least five years out. One of my colleagues came to work for DelDOT late in life. She came to work for the health benefits. She is 64 years old and has almost eight years of service. She planned to work 10 years to get to the 50 percent. Even at 50 percent, her small state pension does not totally cover her health insurance. DelDOT human relations told her last week, even under the current benefits, she would have to write a check to the state for oyer $100 a month. Now you are telling her she will have to work to 70 years old for the same extravagant health benefit. She was almost crying when she told me that she probably could not afford to pay for the total cost of her health insurance. Making a grandma cry...great job, gentlemen.

I am not arguing that state employees do not have excellent benefits. I have no objection to changing the percentage of what the state will pay for health benefits and I sure do not object to the elimination of the married freebie, especially since I must pay $600 a month with a high deductible for may partner's health benefits. I do appreciate your efforts to pass the civil unions that will help close, but not erase the disparity be-tween me and my married colleagues.

Finally, I think the consequence of the health and retirement change will be that it will be far harder to hire highly qualified professional employees who are in their mid- or late careers. You will be hiring a lot more consultants at twice the price, from out of state, and you will be paying all of their travel expenses and food allowance. Nobody pays me to drive to work every day or buy my lunch. Why do I say this? Because I started working for Delaware when I was in my early 40s. I left New York state employment with 22 years of service. If I had stayed in New York, I would be retired now with a generous early-retirement benefit and domestic partner health insurance costing me about $55 a month. I came to Delaware based on the health benefit you are now proposing to take away from me. Would I make the same choice under your new plan...probably not.

I suspect that you will find it very tough to fill many professional jobs, unless you substantially increase salaries. Especially once the economy improves. Del-DOT was bleeding engineers and other professionals to consultants before the economy collapsed. It will happen again

I and most all of my colleagues are willing to do our part - we have taken pay cuts, no raises, deteriorating working conditions, and we keep going with little complaint. I know it's fun to blame the state's and nation's problems on government employees, but demoralizing us and in some cases ruining our retirements is not going to solve the problem at the end of the day.

Gregory Oliver Rehoboth Beach





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