Taxpayers in cities and towns are at risk. Final week, final chance for HB 1645

at worst cynically specious.

While agreement has been reached on 18 other major changes to the pension system, compensation is by far the most important to be resolved. Among those changes on which agreement was reached was a one-time 1.5 percent cost of living increase and continued help with medical insurance.

The clock is ticking.

The House and Senate have to agree on a bill by Wednesday or HB 1645 dies. The aftermath of it dying would be a multimillion tab to be picked up by property taxpayers in cities and towns throughout the state.

The $6 billion retirement system has been grossly underfunded for years. Now the check has to be written. There are only two alternatives – overhaul the system in a manner that will provide a retirement system that is affordable to providers and recipients alike or hammer New Hampshire's hundreds of thousands of taxpayers. Public employees constitute a minority of those taxpayers, but they want the majority to provide them with retirement benefits which few in the private workforce have or can afford.

The argument of some that the underfunding of the retirement system is the fault of the cities and towns is a bogus one. Had local communities opened the tap earlier, it would have simply spread the burden over a longer period of time – like the drip-drip-drip of a water torture. And where was the New Hampshire Retirement System's board of trustees during those past years?

If there had been passion on the part of the NHRS board and the public employees unions, repairs to funding deficits would have been made before the crisis reached critical mass. But everyone on the taking side knew that as long as things plodded along, they were going to get theirs — everyone including those trustees who got theirs in the form of global junkets.

House negotiators have given much in an effort to come up with a piece of legislation that will serve the interests of public employees and the majority of New Hampshire's taxpayers.

Police and fire personnel will continue to be able to retire at age 45 instead of after 25 years of public employment – plenty of time to earn Social Security benefits and other retirement benefits in the private sector.

The makeup of the retirement board will remain the same, instead of providing additional expert representation that might benefit the majority of the people who pay property taxes in New Hampshire.

The important issue this week is that which will determine whether overtime will continue to be included in the computation of benefits. If the House concedes the issue, the cities and towns might just as well roll the public treasuries into the union halls.

It is not clear if a case can be made that current law governing retirement benefits violates the provision in the state constitution that prohibits unfunded mandates. However, if HB 1465 dies this week — or passes in a form so eviscerated as to be lifeless in terms of providing relief to the state's property taxpayers — there is little to be lost in the challenge.

HB 1645 is arguably the most important piece of legislation to affect New Hampshire's 243 communities in decades.

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