Pension issues are complicated

Pension issues are complicated

Bertram de Souza’s column on Sunday, July 10, the response by Al DeVengencie on Sunday, July 25, and the letter by Robert J. Husted on Monday, July 26, merit response.

Let us deal with last letter first. It was deliciously sarcastic at its best. Anyone who did not recognize it as such and felt an explanation was necessary should retake seventh grade English literature.

Mr. DeVengencie gives his response to the de Souza column, but my response is a bit different. As chief financial officer at Hillside Hospital, I receive pension benefits from the Public Employees Retirement Plan. Hillside Hospital is (was) the Trumbull County TB Hospital, which all counties by the Ohio Revised Code were obligated to fund. Hillside, through the foresighted thinking of earlier administrations, added the rehabilitation aspect to the hospital. Hillside continued to receive about $250,000 a year to care for TB patients, and there have always been some TB patients.

Hillside hospital was a profit making institution, and all contributions to the pension plan came from the earnings generated by the employees working there. Further, the Ohio Revised Code contained rules on the accumulation of sick pay. In the event that an employee did not use all their accumulated sick pay at retirement, it allowed that 50 percent of a maximum of 960 hours would be paid to the employee on retirement.

Did this cost the taxpayers? No. The hospital’s income allowed the amount of each employee’s accumulated sick pay to be set aside each pay period at the employee’s current rate of pay. This did not come from the pension plan. Vacation pays and holiday pays were also accounted for on a current basis. These payments were made from hospital earnings.

Things are not always as they seem.

Leonard J. Sainato, Warren