Jan. 24, 2002 – The Advocates for Preservation of the Government Employees Retirement System will hold a public meeting Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at the Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School auditorium on St. Thomas.
Laurence Bryan, administrator for the Government Employees Retirement
System, and members of his staff will be making presentations to the group.
The Advocates group was created last fall to represent the interests of the more than 6,000 V.I. government retirees and the more than 11,000 current government employees, member Leonard Smollett said.
Its highest visibility effort to date has been gathering signatures on a petition protesting two recent Senate overrides of gubernatorial vetoes of legislation. One measure gives early retirement benefits to certain Water and Power Authority hazardous duty employees; the other increases the cap on senators' own pensions to 75 percent of their most recent salaries, up from 65 percent. The Advocates group opposes both laws on the grounds that they are fiscally irresponsible and could undermine the financial stability of the GERS.
Smollett urged members of the public to attend the Saturday meeting.
"Politicians know that we are the largest bloc of voters in the Virgin Islands," he said. "We are Republicans and Democrats, ICM'ers and independents. We represent every political viewpoint. Businesses see us as the largest group of consumers who spend our money here every day of the year … We are the taxpayers and the homeowners."
Government workers, past and present, Smollett added, "belong to every church and ethnic group in the Virgin Islands. We were born here or there and come from every point on the globe. We are the fabric of the Virgin Islands. Our goal is to secure the financial future for all who rely, or will rely, on the solvency of the Government Employees Retirement System."
