This letter is to alert you to changes in the LSU retirement system proposed by the state Legislature. Perhaps you have heard some of the controversies surrounding this issue in the news. We at LSUnited want to briefly acquaint you with the proposed changes and how you can have a voice in this debate. For faculty, it’s a matter of protecting our retirement and stopping the erosion of benefits. For students, it’s a matter of protecting your education and stopping the erosion of the morale and quality of the LSU faculty.
Many of us faculty are alarmed by the state retirement proposals not only because we have not received raises for four years, so that our compensation has not kept up with inflation or the cost of living, but also because we now face the possibility of having our salaries, already significantly lower than those of our peer institutions, further taxed to pay for the legislative mismanagement of our retirement system.
For example, changes to the proposed defined benefit plan would impose what amounts to a 3-percent tax on salaries of faculty in TRSL (Teachers Retirement of Louisiana), effective July 1, 2012 (HB56, SB52). Other legislation, if passed, would close the traditional, defined-benefit plan to new employees and would burden current members of the plan with a higher contribution rate for the same or worse benefits. That’s a tax. The current ORP (Optional Retirement Plan), in which the majority of faculty participates, would be replaced for new faculty. All new faculty would be forced to choose between another defined contribution plan or the new cash-balance plan, depending on which legislation passed.
In either case, the employer’s contribution would be reduced from the current ORP level, which is already significantly below regional standards. And in either case there would be a five-year vestment period, which negates the main advantage of the current ORP plan: namely, portability.
In addition, at least one of the bills now before the Legislature, of some 40 introduced in this session on retirement alone, raises the retirement age to 67 years of age. For example, a faculty member who began at LSU at age 30, has been at LSU for 23 years, and planned to retire in seven years at age 60 would now have to work for an additional seven years before retiring. Faculty in this or a similar position are being penalized instead of rewarded for their good service to the many students they have taught and the state that has benefited from their research.
When faculty signed contracts with the state to teach at LSU, we trusted that those contracts would be honored. Now the state is trying to change the rules.
The faculty at LSU should be outraged by these proposed changes. They would affect our financial survival in the future. Even though we have an outstanding Faculty Senate, they are not allowed to lobby the Legislature. That reality greatly limits our voices; indeed, it silences us. As faculty, our only opportunity to be heard and to lobby is through LSUnited. Our dues support lobbyists who work for us and represent our interests at the Capitol. If you’re a faculty member, you care about your future and want to stop the erosion of the promises made to us when we were hired, join LSUnited. Our only chance is to stand together and speak with a common voice. Please join us.
 
Barbara Heifferon
LSUnited member
 
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