Dear People of Troy,

Big Banks are foaming at the mouth at the prospect of getting their hands on the pension funds of public employees. On March 16 two members of the Committee of Public Pensions pushed through a proposal to turn our well-managed and solvent pension system over to a cash balance plan, meaning BIG BANKS.

There are no data to support this untried system, no research that shows it as workable, expect as a way to gut a pension fund, and no rational reason for trying to fix what isn’t broken, unless you count greed as a rational reason.

You can go on the Retirement Systems of Alabama websites and read the very clearly argued, with rational data to back it up rebuttal that RSA presented in January to rebut the spurious claims of something called the Alabama Policy Institute, a mucky recipient of dark money from the Koch Brothers and other suspicious entities.

But I disagree. RSA data clearly show that the cash balance plan not only will fail to provide an adequate and lifelong return for the hard work Alabama employees have done, but will cost Alabama taxpayers even more.

A Tier III cash balance plan will cost Alabama taxpayers $7.8 billion more over 40 years. In order to provide a benefit comparable to the Tier II plan, a private annuity-bases plan will need 50 percent  more funds than the current pension plan.

I urge you to contact not only our local State representatives, but also the committee members, especially Orr and Greer, and ask them why they are so eager to undermine the hard work and dedication of Alabama’s public employees and which will plunge our retirees into a spiral of poverty and dependency.

I am proud to be an employee of troy University and am dedicated to serving my university and they community it represents but if my future and the future of my family and my colleagues  and their families are put at risk what are going to be the consequences for this and many communities across our state?

Sincerely Yours, 

Dr. Patricia Waters

Troy Ala

Endorsed by: Dr. Theron Montgomery 

Troy, Ala