By Dave Davis
For Variety

THE published COLA entitlements list yields some astonishing information: not only in the lump sum amounts reportedly due under the COLA settlement, but in the mind-boggling amounts some — many of them wealthy — are drawing from the GovGuam Retirement Fund.
The entire system appears to be based on a faulty premise — that the GovGuam retirement pension should provide a standard of living equivalent to that enjoyed while earning a working wage, and if that seems not quite enough, then let’s have the taxpayers involuntarily donate more through COLA and ‘supplemental annuities’. That’s not reasonable. If it were, then all retirement benefit programs would seek to equate to 100 percent of the working wage.
The problem in Guam, and other places as well, has much to do with the fact that wage earners, while fully employed and earning relatively good wages, fail to adequately provide for retirement. That means setting aside enough during the working years to supplement the retirement annuity.
Most retirement systems — the military/federal civil service systems are good examples — provide for annual cost of living adjustments geared to real world economic data. Cost of living adjustment/supplemental annuity schemes for GovGuam retirees have historically been geared to nothing other than elected officials’ expectation of how many votes they can buy with substantial annual lump-sum gifts from the taxpayers, and how long they can get away with it without an accounting. That tactic works well, because GovGuam retirees and employees comprise the major force at the polling booths. They are led to believe that the government owes them a living and a comfortable retirement, without any effort beyond showing up for work for some number of years. That has to change.
The suggestion that GovGuam retirees who are able should get a job has drawn considerable flak, but it’s completely valid. Contributions to society and the community from those with a wealth of knowledge and experience can continue well beyond the common retirement age in many cases.
A recent front-page news article detailed the plight of a GovGuam retiree couple who reportedly can’t afford adequate health care. Although not specifically pointed out in the story, it appears that both members, now in their 50s and somehow disabled, retired from GovGuam in their middle 20s. How did that happen?
The GovGuam Retirement Fund draws funding from both taxpayers and employees. How many GovGuam retirees and dependents should taxpayers be obligated to subsidize for four or five decades or more? It seems that another incredible OOG lurks in the bowels of the GovGuam retirement system.