O'Brien: Don't 'Mass Up' New Hampshire's Public Employee Pension System

By Bill O'Brien, NH Journal

Governor Ayotte’s advocacy for increasing public employee pension benefits, particularly for some Group II employees, by fattening the payment calculations and returning to such gimmickry as working huge numbers of overtime hours in the last years in the system in order to “spike” the annual retirement payout, may seem necessary to fulfill a campaign promise.

Still, it disregards critical commitments made to taxpayers over the years and, in particular, during the landmark 2011 pension reforms.

Those reforms, implemented almost a decade and a half ago and in place for those who came on as public employees but now claim to have had part of their pensions stolen, have been successful and crucial in rescuing a pension system that was perilously close to insolvency.

Our resolve then—and it must remain our resolution now—was unequivocal: taxpayers come first, not special interests.

In 2011, the legislature made challenging yet fiscally responsible choices explicitly to avoid the very budget crises that today’s proposed changes would produce. Pension obligations had become unsustainable, threatening the state’s fundamental commitment to retirees: delivering their pension checks fully and punctually. The reforms we implemented, which have proven successful over the past decade and a half, safeguarded retirement funds while reinforcing our broader responsibilities to fiscal discipline and taxpayer accountability.

An insistence on rolling back these essential reforms risks steering our state back toward financial instability, a situation we have worked hard to overcome. We must not prioritize promises that further enrich a pension system already beyond the reach and imagination of most hard-working, private-sector Granite Staters.

Our duty remains clear: to uphold balanced budgets, resist the influence of special interests, and protect the fiscal integrity that Republicans have fought decades to establish.

I commend today’s Republican legislators for their courage and dedication in working to avoid or reduce irresponsible financial commitments. They should remain united and steadfast, while helping steer everyone away from a looming budgetary collision. Fiscal responsibility, transparency, and the best interests of taxpayers must guide our decisions—not political pledges that threaten our state’s economic stability.

My final message to state leaders: Don’t “Mass Up” our public employee pension system.

Bill O'Brien is a former New Hampshire Speaker of the House and chairman of the Pine Street Public Policy Institute. He wrote this for NHJournal.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.