Members of Local 600 sold commemorative polo shirts at the 2016 Mini Convention in Atlantic City.
A message from
State Delegate Jim Toma
While paying attention to
the current cost of living
adjustment (COLA) cases
winding their way through the
court system in New Jersey
and listening to the arguments
by the state about why we
JIM
don’t need or deserve these
TOMA
increases, I learned that this
question has been asked
before within the federal system, pertaining to
federal employees and especially retired congressional members.
Written in the civil service retirement system
(CSRS) federal law is that CSRS pensions are
adjusted once each year on the same schedule
and by the same percentage as social security
benefits. Also, initial CSRS pensions may not
exceed 80 percent of a member’s final pay.
Over time, however, because COLA merely
prevents the purchasing power of an annuity
(pension) from being eroded by inflation, the
real value of a CSRS pension does not increase
or decrease during retirement, provided that
the price index on which the COLA was based
is an accurate measure of the rate of inflation.
What does that mean?
The definition of Cost of Living Index is the
cost of achieving a certain standard of living in
one year relative to the cost of achieving the
same level the next year.
So if the idea is to maintain a certain level of
living into your retirement years, and not to
annually fall behind in purchasing power, then
forget benefits versus contractual. Isn’t it our
rights as human beings who gave to the
citizens of New Jersey to not fall into poverty as
the value of pensions erode year after year?
Does the general public hear about the 70and 80-year-old retired members living on
pensions of less than $20,000 a year with little
or no social security benefit? For them, that
extra $50 or so per month they would get for
COLA would be for food or medicine.
We all hear about the occasional retiree with
the huge payout and pension number, but this
is not about the exception; it’s about the guys I
talk to every day in the office or at our
meetings, pleading with us not to forget them
and their struggle to stay afloat.
I know that our PBA leadership has not
forgotten – not just Local 600, but the entire
PBA led by President Colligan has promised
not to forget the guys who came before
them. We need all our members – active and
retired – to pull together for the common
cause of decency.
P.S. I would like to thank all the members
who came to the previous month’s meeting in
Bergen County. It was our first meeting up
there and it was a tremendous success. More
than 100 members came,