Caron Beeckel’s letter of March 30, “Solutions are better,” correctly stated that public employees, as part of the Maine State Retirement System, would be required to pay 9.65 percent of their gross income into MSRS.

She incorrectly stated, however, that the “working population” who pay Social Security would pay for the rest of state workers’ retirement.

Members of the MSRS cannot collect Social Security, even if they have paid into it while not working for the state. Therefore, MSRS members are subsidizing the working population’s retirement, not vice versa.

The governor wants the benefits of MSRS to match Social Security, but state workers would pay 9.65 percent, as opposed to the 4.2 percent that private sector workers pay into Social Security.

I worked for 15 years in the private sector and have enough quarters to qualify for Social Security, but as a state employee, I will never get those benefits.

State workers cannot opt out of MSRS in order to pay into and receive Social Security. We are forced to pay in MSRS and lose any money we may have already paid into Social Security.

Given the choice, I would most certainly choose to pay 4.2 percent into Social Security and put the extra 5.45 percent into an IRA.

If Gov. Paul LePage thinks state workers are such a great burden on the state, I wish he would allow me to opt out of MSRS.

David Plourde, Lewiston