Transparency and the state pension system

If you want to know how much a Nevada government worker is paid, all you have to do is ask the employing agency. It’s a public record, and rightfully so. You’re paying that salary. Taxpayers have an undeniable interest in knowing exactly how public dollars are spent.

It follows, then, that citizens should be able to find out how much a retired Nevada government worker collects in pension benefits. After all, the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada is funded by tax dollars. If one day it can’t meet its obligations — PERS currently has an unfunded liability estimated at between $10 billion and $40 billion, depending on how the risk of its investments is measured — taxpayers will be on the hook to cover payments.

But for years, PERS declared such information off-limits. The agency held that state law, which clearly embraces transparency over secrecy, protected the identities of beneficiaries and what they’re paid.

Over the holidays, a Carson City judge quashed the longtime PERS practice of rejecting access to its records. The Reno Gazette-Journal had sued PERS after the agency denied its request for the names of all retired Nevada government workers receiving pension benefits and the amount of each benefit. On Dec. 22, District Judge James Todd Russell ordered PERS to hand over the records.

In his order, Judge Russell correctly declared the purpose of the state’s public records law “is to ensure the accountability of the government to members of the public by facilitating public access to vital information about government activities.”

He also pointed out the absurdity of allowing public access to the names and salaries of current government workers, but denying access to their names and pension benefits once they retire. “It thus follows that the names of retired public employees and the amounts of pension benefits flowing to them as a result of the compensation amounts paid to them while they were public employees are likewise public information,” he wrote.

Denying public access to exact pension benefits has long provided cover to public employee bargaining groups, who have fought efforts to reform and restrain pension benefits by arguing that average annual payments provide a middle-class to lower-class standard of living. But once the public learns how many retired local and state government workers and former elected officials are collecting pension benefits worth at least $100,000 per year for life — after as few as 25 years of work — they’ll probably choke on their breakfast. Then they might be more inclined to support the changes necessary to keep the system solvent in the long-term.

Pension reform is a critical policy issue in Nevada, but it can’t be addressed adequately without detailed public information. Judge Russell’s ruling is a victory for open government.