The Communicator Letters policy We welcome letters to the editor about union issues and events relevant to PEF's diverse membership. All letters are subject to editing for space, fairness and good taste. Please keep them brief (up to one page, double-spaced or a maximum of 250 words), and please include your name and phone number for verification. Send letters to: The Communicator Public Employees Federation P.O. Box 12414 Albany, N.Y. 12212-2414 email Denyce Duncan Lacy, Executive Editor The Communicator - Director of Public Relations dduncanlacy@pef.org Sherry Halbrook, Editor of The Communicator- shalbrook@pef.org The Communicator Home Page Prefers Roth IRA to deferred comp. To the Editor: PEF's leaders deserve congratulations for their victory in improving the Deferred Compensation Program (see July Communicator). However, this should not obscure one crucial fact: the retirement savings champion before this PEF victory, and still the champion, is the Roth IRA. 1. The Roth IRA offers virtually unlimited choices, including real estate investment trusts (REIT) which, I maintain, are an important tool for diversification. 2. There is no mandatory age for starting to take distributions from the Roth IRA. That means that all the funds in the Roth IRA can continue to grow until you really need the money — perhaps for nursing homes, expensive “experimental” operations and other costly things that do not seem to be covered by managed-care health-insurance programs. 3. The Roth IRA distribution is tax-free income. Every dollar you get is yours to keep. The deferred-compensation money is taxed and even Bush's tax cuts may not keep you from paying taxes of up to 43 cents out of every dollar received from your distribution. 4. Even with the improvements in the NYs Deferred Compensation Program as a result of action at the national level, meaningful proposals PEF offered for improving the state's program seem to be languishing because the Deferred Compensation Board has not acted on them. We proposed several years ago that a voluntary professional management option be offered to plan participants. If that option were available, many people would have avoided the huge losses they sustained this past year in the stock market. Robert L. Fisher Albany The Communicator Home Page Federal tax cut looks good to him To the Editor: Re: the bashing of the tax cut in the June Communicator. Now, I’m no big city lawyer, just a PEF grade 19 with a college degree, so maybe you can explain to me where I’m wrong. The federal government removes money from my paycheck every two weeks. Thanks to a previous president’s tax policies that figure went up. Now, the federal government has a budget surplus. The current president wants to give me back some of that money, and my union, which also removes money from my paycheck, thinks this is a bad idea. Don’t try to play that class-warfare card on me. A PEF grade 38 is wealthy by my standards, and he works, and he is entitled to some of his tax money back, just like I am. I submit that anyone who really believes the government can spend their money better than they can and supports such actions, dresses up in a red suit even when it isn’t Christmas. David J. Gallagher Lake George BPC leader big help to psychologists To the Editor: On behalf of the licensed psychologists of the Buffalo Psychiatric Center (BPC), I would like to thank the efforts of PEF and, in particular, the efforts of Paul Shea, PEF Division 180 council leader, for assistance provided in the initiative to reclassify salary-grade 23 associate psychologists to SG-25 licensed psychologists. In my attempts to organize the licensed psychologists of BPC around this issue, I found Shea to be most helpful in providing information and direction on how to proceed. He helped spearhead the BPC psychologists’ initiative through written correspondence with our state Director of Human Resources Robert Cafarelli. And, through consultations with our now past director, Dr. George Molnar, Shea then encouraged me to pick up the effort — yet continued to provide me with the necessary support to ensure that our collective voice was heard at the state level. Through his individual efforts, and as the PEF council leader, Shea has been a valuable resource to professional psychologists at BPC and is to be commended for his work in this difficult and protracted reclassification initiative. Gary J. DiNezza Buffalo