PENSION BENEFITS REPORT
Retirement: Prioritizing your plan
As most of you know, I came on board with the
NJ State PBA just about two years ago with the
intention of informing all of our members about
retirement, and assisting our members in
preparing for retirement. Over the past two years,
with all of the research I have been doing regarding this ever-important topic, I have found that a
vast majority of Americans, including those of us
PETER
in law enforcement, are not prepared for retireANDREYEV ment. I am stating the obvious to many, but seriously, how many of our members think about
what they are going to do after they retire from their law enforcement careers?
Have you thought about it?
When I present the information regarding our pensions in my
seminars, the main theme is asking everyone who is attending,
“Are you ready to go? Do you have a financial plan? Are you planning on working in a different career or job?” When I speak to our
members individually about these topics, some of our members
say they just want to retire because they are sick of – to put it ever
so mildly – the politics of our profession. Some guys can’t wait to
go, due to being passed over for promotion, or having had a
falling out with some of their colleagues; you get the idea.
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What is increasingly clear is that these men and women just
want to retire so badly, that some don’t think about the next chapter in their lives. I have to tell you, until I started doing all this
research on pensions and immersing myself in retirement plans
and options, I didn’t give it one thought, either. It was just much
easier for me to go out in my patrol car and ride around
answering my calls and hanging out with the guys on my squad,
than think about retirement.
So by now you are asking yourself, “What is the point to all
this?” My point is that many of us don’t have a plan for our postlaw enforcement life, and most of us believe that our pensions
will, and should, carry us while we are retired. Some of us don’t
think about the expenses in retirement. Many may have kids who
are in college or preparing to start their college education. Then
you start wondering, “How am I going to pay for that?” Or your
older child says to you that she is getting married and they want
the wedding they saw while watching “The Real Housewives of
New Jersey;” how are you gonna snap her out of that dream?
Obviously I’m kidding, but seriously, most of our members
don’t think about these concerns, and all they have is that survival
mentality of “Let me just get through the last few years, and save
some more vacation and sick time so I can get a fat check when I
leave.”
For some of us, it may be a little late to start saving for
retirement in plans other than our pension. For all of our members who are newly hired and midway through their careers, you
guys need to start looking into options you have through your
payroll department for deferred comp plans, also known as the
457 plans.
Maybe go see a financial planner to set you up with other types
of plans designed to help you when you are ready to retire. We all
need to start looking at these types of plans more than ever
because, when we retire, we will not have a cost of living adjustment (COLA) to look forward to. We all need to start to look at the
time when we are ready to retire because, in all the research I have
done regarding pensions and retirement, one thing is very clear:
We all must save more to have a secure retirement, and failing to
save assures a sharp drop in living standards when our full paychecks stop, because the overwhelming evidence suggests that
many of us are not saving enough for retirement. d