To the editor:

I am pleased to see so much concern lately about Westport’s pension and OPEB liability and the implications on our long-term financial future. As a current selectman, former member of the Finance Committee and of the ad-hoc citizen group “Westport Financial Future,” I have been studying this issue closely for many years, it is a real concern that we must address.

Westport’s unfunded educational facility liability parallels the OPEB liability, in fact, anyone who is concerned about the one should be equally concerned about the other.

We owe our former employees benefits we promised them, we similarly owe them a safe and healthy work environment conducive to doing their job. We will have to pay for pension and OPEB but we cannot be precisely sure just how much we will need to spend in the future; it will vary based on lifespan, medical insurance premiums, the economy and inflation. Ultimately any number associated with this is an accounting projection. The projections are all quite large, but are consistent with nearly every municipality in our state.

We will have to pay for a new school building within the foreseeable future. We have one closed building, the other is nearly 70 years old, our students and teachers do not have the space they need in an environment conducive to education. This is not sustainable in the long-term. Any building will require a significant lump sum cost, unlike the other liability, we do know how much this will cost and when the costs will be paid in full.

The powers of compound interest show us that the sooner we put money in a reserve account, the more it can grow. The same principle applies to the building; the cost of construction will be higher in the future, so paying for it now saves us money later. If we start paying for it now, we not only benefit from lower current costs, we share the cost with a party who has committed to pay us now but may not be willing to pay in the future.

In the case of the building project, we have a mechanism to ensure that the dollars we must spend are not part of our regular operating budget. By passing a debt exclusion, we agree to temporarily (I know 30 years does not feel temporary) increase our property tax and have those proceeds go directly to that project and that project only, there is no capacity to direct that money to any other purpose. It will not negatively impact any of our current services.

The pension and OPEB liability cannot be addressed in the same way. If we permanently increase our taxes through an override, there is no definitive way to ensure those funds are directed to that purpose in perpetuity. We can (and already do) direct money to the OPEB reserve account in our operating budget. We are, in fact, ahead of most of our peers in addressing this issue but more must be done. We will need a multi-pronged approach to tackle that problem.

I hope the people bringing up their concerns now will participate in practical problem solving with implementable suggestions and proper dialogue about tradeoffs with any proposal.

In summary, we have two underfunded liability problems in Westport, we must be concerned about both. We have a specific, detailed, practical proposal to address the buildings before us right now. We have an obligation to implement it.

Shana M. Shufelt

Westport