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Nevada’s Public Employee Retirement System has again lost in its attempts to hide information about government pensions from the public.
This time, it was Nevada Policy Research Institute that sued to find out how much former Nevada employees were being paid from the retirement fund. The Reno Gazette-Journal had already won its case, which made its way to the state Supreme Court, to obtain the same information.
You can read an NPRI commentary about the case here, and the judge’s ruling itself here. Here’s the Review-Journal’s story on the ruling.
I think I understand why PERS keeps fighting. Some members say they are uncomfortable with people knowing how much money they make in retirement, and some individual cases have come under scrutiny because people were able to retire at relatively young ages, receive pensions that eventually will be worth millions of dollars, and yet go on to find gainful employment in another state.
There also have been concerns about “cybersecurity,” that individuals may be targeted by hackers if certain personal identifying information is exposed.
But in ruling after ruling, the courts have said these arguments don’t hold water.
You may wonder, though, why the press and a think-tank like NPRI continue to ask for the information. What good does it do?
It does exactly the good that Nevada’s public-records law is intended to do.
Salaries of government employees are a matter of public knowledge because, first, they are being paid by tax dollars. Pay is no different from any other item in a government’s budget, or any other bill. If we want to know how much we paid, all we have to do is ask.
Second, simply by being a matter of public record, government expenses including salaries are held more accountable. In other words, we can look at the salary of a government employee — like I did this week, of a new hire on the government’s staff at $117,000 a year — and conclude for myself whether I think that is a reasonable, justifiable salary.
Ultimately, it’s the best way to keep your government honest. Did the city manager hire his brother-in-law at $1.8 million a year? Are women paid less than men? Are minorities getting shorted?
In the case of PERS, it’s also a way to keep an eye on the overhaul health of the system, which has had billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities in the past for which taxpayers could be partly responsible.
According to the Review-Journal, the PERS fund was worth $35 billion lst year. It had 103,000 active members and covers nearly all state and local government employees in Nevada, including public school teachers.