Local Assembly Members May Lose Pensions	No.624 March 3, 2009
		Pensions for local legislators are put on the debates lately. The funds are to be bankrupted and some people claim that the annuity programs should be ended. Let’s look into the problem. Autonomy constitutes a wing of representative democracy to reflect a variety of opinions of local people. Will local assemblies be able to function if such a policy is taken for the members? ONLY RICH PEOPLE CAN BECOME ASSEMBLY MEMBERS An Incumbent Member Supports Three Pensioners in Mathematical Calculations The pension funds for local legislators will surely break up in the fiscal 2011. Financial resources of the smallest administrative units of a village, town and city are pressed. Payments are balanced in the calculation that one incumbent member supports three pensioners. The causes, however, are attributed to the central government’s decisions to substantially reduce the number of local assembly members and apply a low interest rate in the financial transactions, the latter affecting all the pension plans. Two big reforms have been made in the local assembly pension systems since 1988: the sums were decreased and the limit of 30 years in office was set. The amount paid to an ex-legislator who has worked for 30 years does not reach the sum paid for one who has served three terms of 12 years, which is the minimum eligibility to receive pensions. Currently the local assembly pension authorities discuss how to revise the annuity and propose spending more public money. It is difficult for people in general to understand the problem, because both the monthly premium which individual members owe (16% of monthly salary) and the public spending increased (16.5%, including relief measures to minimize changes caused by administrative mergers carried out in the past ten years). Some demand that pensions for local assembly people should be abandoned in the same way as the national Diet members. Referring to the increased number of sacked temporary workers who suffer from fatal dangers in the daily life, some accuse that politicians do not work but enjoy public support. Other Pension Plans Affected You must not forget, however, an important point: a local assembly member has elections every four years and the status is unstable. In many cases a candidate must quit his/her job to be elected. After elected it is hard to keep a routine job and work for the sake of inhabitants as expected, and thus sometimes his/her family supports the local legislator. Fewer people will choose to be a member of the assembly if pensions cease to exist. If you allow the criticism that the pension system for legislators, which every member has to join, is privileged and therefore should be abandoned, then they will attack other pension programs too: with some timely excuses they will demand a closure or amendment for worse. The pension system for parliamentarians in the Diets was abrogated and the reserve system ended, but public money is spent to support existing pensioners. Let’s Reshape Assemblies! The debates in question represent an eruption of distrust in local assemblymen: some take a nap in the session, some do not ask questions, some join a chorus of majority opinions, and so on. Some behave more arrogantly but work less intensively than the administrative staff. Under these circumstances changes take place in many municipalities in the country. Assembly members, listening to the voices of residents, compile basic assembly ordinances and hold a public hearing to incorporate opinions of inhabitants into the policies. Greater participation of residents is welcome and more information on administrative activities is open. In May 2006 the assembly of Kuriyama-cho, Hokkaido, adopted a resolution to go in this direction, and the practice has been spreading in the country since then. As a wing of representative democracy local autonomy must be sound enough to work. Without voluntary reforms in the local assembly, the controversial pension issue will not be settled in the right way.