State has to look for ways to trim

Looking for ways to trim the cost of state government, Gov. Kenny Guinn has proposed a sensible and essentially pain-free way to save some $500 million over the next 30 years.

He would end the practice of contributing state funds to the health benefits of retired state employees. It would affect only new hires, not current employees or retirees.

Despite some protestations to the contrary, Guinn is not taking anything away from state workers. If you don't work there now, you don't have that benefit.

Paying for retiree health benefits also is not a common practice in private industry, so it's not as if people would be giving up a perk if they went to work for the state.

The argument for retaining the retiree health benefit goes something like this: It's an incentive to attract and keep quality employees, who are often lured away by better benefits from local governments.

While we understand the problem, it's hard to work up much sympathy for bureaucrats competing against bureaucrats to see who can raise pay and benefits the fastest. As far as taxpayers are concerned, it all comes out of the same pockets.

Many retirees do have trouble getting health-care insurance or qualifying for Medicare, but that's true for everybody. It's a problem with the nation's health-care system, which we'd like legislators to try to answer for all of us - not just public employees.

And when government workers have a better benefit plan than the taxpayers who are funding it can afford for themselves, then the government's priorities are out of whack.

Guinn's priority, as it should be, is trying to balance the cost of government with the services Nevada's population needs. He also proposed a whopping 1,307 new state employees to help provide those services.

To afford to hire them, something has to give.