Pension plunder

http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2008/03/03/opinion/322277.txt

It's almost a caricature of injustice to taxpayers and honest public servants. That the New Haven police union is applauding disgraced former officer William White's successful quest to raid the pension fund should outrage citizens and lawmakers sufficiently to bring Connecticut's public-employee colossus under a semblance of control.

Former Lt. White, who "served" 24 years in the New Haven Police Department, is awaiting sentencing in federal court for theft and bribery. The feds may have got him cold, but he has outwitted the local yokels at every turn. First he resigned before he could be fired; then, when the Police Commission tried to deny him $44,700 in unused sick time, vacation days and holiday pay, the union filed a grievance and won. What's more, the lump-sum payment will inflate his annual pension by $3,000 to $94,000.

There is something profoundly wrong when the morality of a labor organization is so twisted, it prostrates itself to protect its worst elements and then call it a "great victory" for all officers, as the New Haven union president did. In reality, all it does is make honest police officers' jobs harder because it puts all of them under suspicion.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, and Republican lawmakers have been pushing since 2003 for a state law that would enable judges to deny pensions to corrupt officials and employees. Gov. M. Jodi Rell, also a Republican, has proposed a pension-denial measure of her own. There are indications such a law has a chance of passage this year. Unfortunately, it would apply to state employees and elected leaders, not municipal workers and officials.

Someday, the public will grow weary of public-employee unions' ownership of the political system in Connecticut. Mr. White would be a nice poster-boy for legislation restoring management authority to the people and their elected representatives.