Editorial: PSERS board shouldn’t gag members
Share this post:
The Pennsylvania School Employees Retirement System is one of those things that can just make people bristle. It’s bad enough when things are going right since taxpayers can grumble about paying into someone else’s pension. It’s even worse when things go wrong, as more than a decade of state pension crisis putting pressure on local boards has shown.
So it was natural that people — both taxpayers and teachers — would be concerned about problems with the state agency that represents 500,000 workers and juggles $70 billion.
In March, the PSERS board confirmed that a mistake in calculations would impact school district contributions to the fund. That was followed by the board hiring two law firms to consult on the problem. Then there were reports of staff accepting gifts.
Now the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is working with federal authorities to investigate the organization. The board confirmed that it was subpoenaed by the SEC, which comes after earlier reports of a grand jury investigation.
So what could be more upsetting than this growing snowball of math problems and ethics issues and criminal probes?
The fact that PSERS wants silence on the matter.
A Spotlight PA and Philadelphia Inquirer story pointed to the board’s leadership being more concerned with leaks of information than the rot at the heart of the apple itself. The response includes considering nondisclosure agreements for board members and the possibility of asking for an official state investigation — not of the would-be problems but of who is talking about them.
A state agency should never be silencing members — especially members that include six elected officials. All 15 members are there to represent the best interest of the people who receive (or will receive) pension checks and those who pay into the fund through their property taxes. That cannot be done through a muzzle.
But some of the board members are not just being gagged. They are also being shut out of information themselves, which would seem to cut them off from their responsibility in representing their constituents and making effective decisions about the fund.
Is this what PSERS’s $925-an-hour attorney William M. Sullivan Jr. meant in his promise to shield board members from “aggressive criminal investigative scrutiny”?
It seems impossible for the board to function effectively and even legally in trying to cover itself from a criminal probe at the same time it acts as a viable state agency.