Editor’s note: The author is responding to an article alleging that police officers get too much in the way of benefits when they retire.
Seth Grossman’s commentary, “Cap pension payments to relieve budget burden,” represents the kind of uninformed scare tactic that complicates the debate on the health of New Jersey’s pension system. As president of New Jersey’s largest law enforcement organization, which has more than 33,000 members in service to state, county and local law enforcement agencies, it is necessary to point out several of Grossman’s errors in assumptions and to express why law enforcement officers in the Police and Firemen’s Retirement System (PFRS) need to be excluded from any pension and benefit reforms.

In the 1980s Australian state and territorial governments started slowly eliminating the defined pension benefits for public employees by “selling the unborn.” Employees hired after a certain date would receive less pension benefits than existing employees. While the unions protested, current employees did not want to lose or reduce their pensions to protect future employees. The die was cast and 25 years later there are few defined benefit pension plans open to new employees.