Notes on the DOE Public Meeting – 06/22/06

Al Brooks & Bob Henderson

You folks that attended have your own opinions of the meeting and we would like to hear them. For those who couldn't attend here is our opinion.

First of all it was a good meeting. We said, "Good" not successful; there weren't any adjustments passed out. It was a meeting we had to sit through in order to proceed to the next step, "Put Pressure on ALL the Legislators". The meeting was also good because while DOE said nothing new some things received a new emphasis and hence importance. Some other things are important because they weren’t said. The audience sat patiently and politely quiet through DOE's explanation of their nation-wide problems. When the DOE speaker turned to the Oak Ridge pension plan where the audience had knowledge and opinions different from DOE they went into the interactive mode: polite booing and catcalls just long enough to express a contrary opinion or disapproval but not so long as to limit DOE's speech. There was no profanity or sounds of gunfire. All in all it was very effective; DOE should know now how they stand in Oak Ridge.

Frank Monger referred to this DOE talk as "the facts reported by DOE". The "facts" may have been true but many did not have anything to do with the Oak Ridge concerns. Also some of the "DOE facts" made no reference to contradicting facts having a direct and large impact on the problems. This technique of citing half the evidence and sweeping one problem into a pile with many others is an old technique, called dissemblance.

Dave Reichle, speaking for CORRE and leading off for the public, made an appropriately strong statement well-supported by the audience. Dave called DOE to task on their "facts" and assumptions. The audience followed in kind.
More detail on these at http://home.comcast.net/~brooks50/PensionPlanInformer.htm

We would make the following points on DOE statements:

1) DOE stated they could not manage the benefit programs because they could not predict their costs. We concur with DOE on the management and cost predictions but they might consider improving these skills and not seek a solution by destroying the pensions of Oak Ridge retirees.

2) DOE also said that the Oak Ridge pension problem must be viewed along with the DOE-wide problem. We agree and suggest since DOE has not found it necessary to add to the Oak Ridge pension trust fund for 22 years that they cut everyone's pension back to the levels of the Oak Ridge pensions. Hell, we didn't cause their problem, we solved it and now they wish to penalize us. They could also reward us and penalize the others. It's called "fair treatment".

3) These "one solution fits all problems" always seem to penalize the best performers and DOE proposes to do the same to Oak Ridge. And buried in these regulations are truly drastic actions for recent and future retirees under the old plan: there will be no improvements to any existing defined benefit pension plan in spite of inflation.

4) DOE referred to the Oak Ridge pension "benefit" as generous because it was almost the same as the final wages at retirement with no COLAs before inflation wreaked its havoc. They did not explain that "benefit" included the social security benefit and a mysterious "defined contribution" converted to an annual payment in some undisclosed manner. They claimed that Oak Ridge rated about tenth in their comparison group without explaining that this was also in the average range. In fact, they assumed maximum participation of an imaginary individual in the savings plan when the average for the nation is less than 6 %. They did not explain why the comparison sites did not contain LANL, the closest peer to Oak Ridge and one of the best paid. They did not explain that 95% of the Oak Ridge retirees have a multiplier of 1.2, NOT 1.4, and a surviving spouse penalty of 10% not 2% .So much for "facts".

5) DOE also divides their mysterious pension benefit by the final wages thus allowing a poor benefit caused by low wages to appear very good. Not every thing is as it first appears in the DOE ratings.

6) DOE bragged the past ad hoc adjustments made to combat inflation's slow but certain erosion but did not explain that many of the listed action had severe "recent retiree exclusions" and caps and thus weren't as generous as advertised. Only a detailed review of the past actions reveals the truth. Further, if these actions were necessary in the past to maintain equity in buying power why can they be placed on hold for the next sixty years while the recently vested employees clear the system?

7) DOE also showed comparisons of apple and oranges, such as the trends in the totals for all benefit plans at all sites. It shows DOE yearly costs are going up just like the rest of the world but it does little to determine which expenses are out of control or which sites have been responsible for the increases. It is very well known that the Consumer Price Index is constantly increasing and health costs have gone through the ceiling. These are global problems that cannot be solved by destroying existing plans or by passing the responsibility from DOE to the employees.

8) DOE repeatedly referred to the benefit plans as "taking money away from programs and research". Does DOE consider only the current benefits to current employees a part of the "cost" of nuclear weapons and other DOE efforts? Can they not ask congress for funds to support benefit plans as a cost of doing business? To say, No!" is to belie the fact that it was congress collectively and legislators separately who forced the "hold" on DOE actions so the benefit problems could be further studied.

9) This was a public meeting instigated not by DOE but by Congressman Zach Wamp. It was not a public debate; DOE answered the question they chose to answer and passed on the hard ones. DOE said they wanted stakeholder's input and then immediately told us their conclusions. There was no time for rebuttals or the refutation of "facts". DOE did not yield on one point and spoke of a future without changes in existing plans. Did they really listen and try to learn?

10) One of us asked DOE a simple question:
"Under N 351.1, a vested (10 yr) employee could retire in 35 years and live to be 95 at which time their pension would be reduced by compounded CPIs to 19.9% of its original buying power. Is this what DOE intends to do to these people?
DOE did not answer. We can only assume the honest answer is, "Yes, it is". This is supported by the statement of priorities made by Contractor administrators.

11) Never in our years of data analysis have we heard such BALDERDASH, never have we seen claims so obviously false, assumptions so far from reality, or numerical analysis so shallow and so much in error. There is more discussion of the shortcomings of the DOE arguments in several papers on the web site: Pension Plan Informer, dedicated to the Oak Ridge pension problems. (Even DOE could learn from it.)

12) We could make more comments given space and time.

Our suggestion is: "Let's not take this lying down

Let's get more of our retirees involved in the fight!"

This web site will ascertain and list accessible e-mail addresses for legislators from states that have DOE installations. We ask you to write letters. Remember: Letters to legislators caused this meeting AND the hold on DOE actions.