Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:
Jan. 6
News and Observer, Raleigh, North Carolina, on excessive state pensions:
The federal government puts limits on public pensions – for good reason. A pension is designed in theory to provide a measure of security for long and good work. It is not supposed to provide a retired worker with the same income received when he or she was working.
But in 1996, Congress gave public pension systems the chance to arrange for some retiring employees to get more than the standard as state systems found some employees bumping against the limit.
In 2013, North Carolina did just that, setting up a supplemental fund to pay some retirees a sum on top of their regular earned pensions. Presumably, this was to keep top employees working on, knowing they would earn higher pensions, rather than quitting when they hit the limit.
That might be a worthy tradeoff if a Nobel Prize-winning scientist was running, say, the state Department of Health and Human Services and designing cures for diseases. But in the vast majority of cases, public pensions in North Carolina are quite generous. And typically, those who are working and in a position to receive them are compensated beyond what they’d get in a pension if they kept working.
In North Carolina, there are 900,000 state and local employees in the state retirement system. They contribute 6 percent of their salaries to retirement, and their employers contribute 7 to 9 percent. There are 240,000 retired state employees. Those who put in 30 years get roughly 55 percent of their annual pay in retirement, a nice figure, and it’s a secure figure as well, considering North Carolina’s system is quite solvent.
So why, then, should some highly paid employees draw from this supplemental fund? To give them an incentive to keep working? Their salaries should be adequate for that. And their pensions would astound most of the regular working folks in North Carolina.
Consider: Former Wake County schools Superintendent Del Burns draws a total yearly pension of $162,000. Of that, he gets a nice kick of $13,500 from the supplemental fund. Eric McKeithan, former president of Cape Fear Community College, gets a pension that in 2014 was $172,000, of which $39,000 came from the supplemental fund. (An earlier installment in The News Observer series, “Checks Without Balances,” showed that McKeithan was among public employees who had their perks such as car and housing allowances rolled into their salaries to boost their public pensions, a bad practice.)
But the big winner from the supplemental fund is former UNC-Chapel Hill Athletics Director Dick Baddour. Of his astonishing pension of $281,000 in 2014, some $64,000 came from the supplemental fund.
No wonder the UNC system wants to continue the supplemental fund rather than let it expire. The system employs more highly paid workers than any other public entity.
But it ought to put the greater public interest before its own, and the public interest is in ending this supplemental fund. All state workers should be under the same formula. Those with higher salaries will get higher pensions, and that should be enough. State Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Republican from Hendersonville, is co-chair of the Senate’s committee on pensions and retirement, and he wants to sunset the law so the state’s not on the hook to pay supplements to pensions that exceed the federal limit.
He says if the university system wants to boost pensions, it should pay for that out of a fund it sets up in-house. He should have added that no public money should go into such a fund.
Apodaca rightly sees fairness as an issue here. Common sense is in there, too. The state has a good system with a simple formula, and it should stay with that system for all employees. Setting up the fund might have been well-intentioned, but it has turned out to be a bad and increasingly costly idea. And it’s an idea whose time never should have come, but definitely has gone.
Online:
http://www.newsobserver.com
—-
Jan. 5
Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Journal on food trucks:
One of the best things about our area is many residents embrace new business ideas, adding to our economic rebound. Food trucks are a prime example.
We’ve long had vending trucks that bring snacks to workplaces. The food trucks, part of a national trend, take that effort a step further. These rolling restaurants, setting up in well-traveled spots, offer widely varied full meals, from Mexican to basic American. The best of them are wildly creative.
Count Brandon Cassidy’s truck, Food Freaks of NC, in that category. Cassidy, a Mocksville man whose day job had been in education, had been creating his own delicacies for years, inspired by the cooking of his “country boy dad and Italian mother.” After offering them to the public at the 2013 Dixie Classic Fair, he realized there was a market for his creations and has been working 17-hour days to bring his dream to fruition.
“Maybe I’m crazy, but I told my wife, ‘If we risk it now and lose, we’ll still have time to get it all back before the kids get older,'” the 41-year-old Cassidy, who also does catering, told Journal West correspondent Jenny Drabble. “I knew this is what I was meant to do and I was tired of getting up every morning to go to a job I hated, so I took a leap of faith.”
Now he operates the food truck with the help of his wife, Marie, and his apprentice, Nathan Johnson, Drabble reported last week. Tuesdays through Sundays, the truck rolls through places including Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Burlington, Mocksville and the Lake Norman area.
Drabble described a wide range of delicacies that Chef Brandon Cassidy offers, including the “Elvis, a burger that combines banana peanut butter chutney, cheese, apples and bacon.” There’s the pickle dog, “a dill pickle wrapped in pastrami with a homemade 16-ingredient cheese spread, dipped in batter and flash-fried,” Drabble reported.
“Other fan favorites include the Mason Jar Cakes — homemade cakes layered in a jar and sandwiched with icing — and the five different stuffed burgers, filled with all sorts of homemade sauces and toppings,” Drabble wrote.
Then there’s the “Sweet-N-Crispy Apple Rings, Granny Smith apples flash-fried in a sweet cinnamon batter with a caramel drizzle.”
Cassidy said: “I’ve had a few people turn their noses up because the combinations I make sound wacky, but then they try it and they tell me it’s the best thing they’ve ever tasted. I combine everyday common flavors in a way most people wouldn’t think of doing.”
His combination of creativity and hard work is succeeding.
“It’s so surreal hearing people talk about how much they love my food,” he said. “I think this is what I was born to do.”
That’s the kind of entrepreneurial spirit we need more of in 2015, no matter what the business.
Online:
http://www.journalnow.com
—-
Jan. 7
Fayetteville (North Carolina) Observer on new veterans clinics:
The Department of Veterans Affairs isn’t out of the storm. Far from it. The federal agency remains under hard-earned dark clouds of heightened scrutiny. VA records were doctored and some who were awaiting care died.
But at least the picture in Fayetteville seems brighter. New clinics have opened and more are on the way. They bring hope for improved care and a side benefit – an economic shot in the arm.
In mid-2014, at the height of the national scandal, wait times at Fayetteville’s VA hospital were ranked the longest in the nation. That may only have been proof that local rates weren’t being falsified as much as those elsewhere, but it remained unacceptable. Home to multiple military installations, eastern North Carolina boasts one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing veteran populations. Since then, Fayetteville’s spot at the top of the shameful wait-time list has passed to Hampton, Virginia.
There may be several reasons why Fayetteville’s status has improved slightly. Federal legislation allowing many vets to seek private medical attention was one useful step. But opening more health-care centers in regions like this one offers a prognosis for further improvement.
A temporary clinic opened late last year on Breezewood Avenue in Fayetteville with capacity for serving 3,600 patients. A similar facility opened in Jacksonville. Both came in response to concerns about wait times.
“It’s a start” said Fayetteville VA chief nurse Debra Young. “We are making every effort to deliver access and provide quality care.”
And reinforcements are coming, with plans to expand that beachhead.
The new Fayetteville VA Healthcare Center on Raeford Road will open in a few months, as will clinics in Jacksonville, Goldsboro and Sanford. Those operations should bring a net gain of 150 jobs to a region where economic growth has lagged behind the rest of the state.
A rehab center being opened in conjunction with the Army’s Womack Hospital at Fort Bragg should bring another 20 new positions.
Next year, a new wing is planned for the old VA hospital on Ramsey Street, which should further address the demand for space and again create more jobs.
VA growth also could bring an indirect boost to the local economy when vets and their families visit the area for treatment, patronizing shops, restaurants and hotels.
Fayetteville is among the most veteran-friendly of communities. The expanded VA presence is both welcome and needed.
Online:
http://www.fayobserver.com
Leave a Reply