The Educational Retirement Board plays a very important role in the life of every New Mexican who works in public education. The organization is responsible for providing pensions to these public servants. During their working careers, the employees and employers make contributions to the Educational Retirement Board, which invests the contributions so that with the investment earnings, there will be enough money to pay the retirement benefits accrued during their working years.

As the Educational Retirement Board chairwoman and a board member for more than 10 years, I assure you that those of us serving as Educational Retirement Board members take our fiduciary duty very seriously. As a board, we are not known as alarmists; however, now is the time for important corrective action to be taken to ensure the long-term sustainability of the pensions that we provide to New Mexico's public educational employees. The longer we wait to take action, the more severe the changes will need to be.

In September, our board set aggressive goals to improve the Educational Retirement Board's funding. Some have said that these goals are unrealistic; however, it is our duty to honor the Educational Retirement Board's commitments to teachers, faculty and staff and be able to pay the retirement benefits that they have worked so long and hard to earn. To do anything less is irresponsible and a breach of our fiduciary duty.

In November, our board selected a proposal to present to the Legislature for action in the 2012 session. The proposal was designed and presented by the New Mexico Association of Educational Retirees, accepted by the Educational Retirement Board and endorsed by the Legislature's Investments and Pension Oversight Committee. The plan includes two key features that will help the Educational Retirement Board on the path to solvency.

The first is a 12.5 percent reduction in the cost-of-living adjustment for all current and future retirees. Recently, at one of our meetings with stakeholders to explain why the Educational Retiree Board must make changes in its benefits, one retiree noted that it seemed unfair that the Educational Retirement Board retirees are getting cost-of-living adjustment almost every year while the classroom teachers haven't had raises in three years -- and many of the retirees in the room concurred. It's humbling to see that the importance of shared responsibility is still felt and accepted by many.

The second feature of the proposal is to establish a minimum retirement age of 55. To ensure that members close to retirement will be able to keep their plans, there will be a 10-year grandfather period in which the minimum retirement age will not be applied. Already, many of Educational Retirement Board's members work well past age 55.

There is no practical way to solve the problems with which we are presented without affecting every member of the education community, whether they are approaching retirement or not. A careful review of these changes shows that they are indeed modest changes, especially when compared to what other retirement systems have done. However, these minor changes will have strong and positive effects within a very few years for the Educational Retirement Board's funding.

For many years, the New Mexico Legislature has wrestled with how to address the Educational Retirement Board's long-term underfunding problem, and we've made progress in recent years. As Sen. George Muñoz, the chairman of the legislative Investment and Pension Oversight Committee, said at a recent hearing, it's time to stop kicking this can down the road. New Mexico's educators deserve better; they should have a fully funded retirement that they can count on.

Now is the time for all of us to commit to working in partnership with the Legislature to improve the Educational Retirement Board's solvency and ensure that benefits for all of our members -- retired members, active employees and future members -- are secure.

Mary Lou Cameron is chairwoman of the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board.