The

Rep. Xavier Becerra (right) with CalPERS CEO Fred Buenrostro

stalemate in Washington over Social Security reform is probably good news for state and local retirement systems that do not want to be forced to participate in the program, a congressman honored by the Coalition to Preserve Retirement Security said on Feb. 6.

"As long as we can't figure out what to do with Social Security, you're in good shape," Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., joked at the CPRS awards dinner. "Chaos sometimes can be helpful."

Becerra and Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., both members of the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, each received CPRS' Soaring Eagle Award, the coalition's highest honor, for their commitment to defending public employees now outside of Social Security from efforts to force them to join.

While acknowledging the importance of Social Security and of putting the program on solid fiscal ground, Becerra also recognized that mandatory coverage would harm existing public pension funds.

"When

Rep. Richard Neal (right) is presented the Soaring Eagle Award by Massachusetts TRS Assistant Executive Director Sean Neilon

you've got something working, don't fix it," he said, adding that Social Security reform needs to occur without causing "the destruction of retirement systems that police, firefighters and others have come to rely on."

Neal also referenced first responders, invoking the memory of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in discussing the importance of public pension funds.

"The people who ran out of the towers on 9/11 weren't government employees," he said. "The people who ran into the towers were government employees. ... Let's not ever demean what you meant to their wives and children afterwards."

Former CPRS Secretary-Treasurer Rob Gray of the Colorado Public Employees' Retirement Administration was presented with the CPRS Excellence Award for his years of service to the coalition.