To the editor:

In an article you published Aug.1, the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting authors chide Senate candidate Angus King’s claims about pension funding during his two terms as governor.

The Center’s graph displays the percent of actuarial liability funding for the plan in the years from 1987 to 2003 (the end of King’s last term). In 2003, the funding was at 67.4 percent, having dropped from a 74 percent high in 2000.

They conclude their article with the statement that the 2006-2007 recession caused “another drop” in the system’s funding status, “prompting” Gov. Paul Le- Page and the Legislature to reduce pension benefits. They state this reduction means that the state will pay a significantly smaller amount in pension costs between now and 2028.

Although the latter statement is certainly true, this positive spin on the targeted reductions of the LePage administration and the current Legislature is very misleading.

In fact, when the Legislature acted in 2011, the actuarial funding was over 70 percent! There was no crisis. The LePage administration, in particular the state treasurer, whipped up anxiety over a non-problem in order to fund a broad tax reduction, including a reduction in the top income tax brackets.

In other words, promised retirement benefits to retired public employees are being reduced for the benefit of Maine’s wealthiest taxpayers. Thus, in contrast to the suggestion in the article, Maine ’s prior governors, including Gov. King, acted responsibly and fairly in bringing the “unfunded actuarial liability” closer to the recommended 80 percent.

It is the current administration that has distorted facts to its own ends. This is spelled out in greater detail in the allegations made in a pending lawsuit brought by the Maine Association of Retirees against the board of trustees of the Public Employees Retirement System, filed earlier this year in U.S. District Court.

Lucinda E. White

Freeport