Work from home as gas prices increase

With the current possibility of gasoline prices rising dramatically, maybe all government as well as private-sector employers should consider having their employees work from home. This would also help the environment and help people with their personal budget constraints.

Ken Takeya

Kailua

Proposal would make it easy to save

The Legislature needs to pass the proposed state-facilitated retirement savings program for Hawaii’s private-sector workers.

I was fortunate to have a retirement plan. Having an automatic deduction from my paycheck made it easy for me to save. However, about 215,000 private- sector workers in Hawaii do not have a way to save at work via payroll deduction, which is the easiest way to save. Many of these workers are employed by small businesses that cannot afford to offer a retirement savings option. I fear for the future of these workers and for taxpayers.

I am the president of a small nonprofit. We would like to grow and having this system would help us. There are many small businesses and nonprofits that would benefit from the proposed plan.

Over the next 20 years, we will see fewer people working and more people of retirement age. If we cannot increase the savings rate, those working will face higher taxes to pay for those who cannot support themselves as they age, and retiree benefits and pensions may be cut.

Dolores Foley

Kailua

Take initiative to save for your retirement

A very good letter (“Bill would help workers save for retirement,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, March 7). Let’s go one step further.

Don’t wait for the government to do something for you. That’s wishful thinking and you are wasting precious time. Invest in yourself today. Contact Charles Schwab, Fidelity or Vanguard and open up a Roth IRA. You can contribute $6,000 a year, more for older contributors.

If you do it today, you can contribute your funds for 2021. At retirement, you can draw money out without paying taxes.

What mutual fund to purchase? Follow the advice of Warren Buffett, a self-made billionaire: the S&P 500 Index Fund. It is said that if you do not save and invest your money, you will be left behind.

Albert Miral

Ewa Beach

Universities do grant tenure to librarians

Jan Naoe Sullivan dismissed concerns about proposed changes to the University of Hawaii’s tenure system as “alarmist” (“Don’t heed alarmist talk on UH tenure,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Feb. 27).

A March 8 article from “Inside Higher Ed” noted that her preferred changes were rejected by the majority of the UH’s Board of Regents.

Sullivan said that UH is unique in that it grants tenure to people who do not instruct or conduct research. If she is including librarians, who are often ranked as administrative faculty at universities — although sometimes conduct research and provide instruction — in that “unique” population, she is wrong.

As of 2018, there were at least 200 universities that grant librarians faculty status and the ability to achieve tenure, and many more who grant librarians faculty status without the ability to achieve tenure.

Faculty status and the ability to achieve tenure provide assurance of due process and protection against arbitrary retribution, so that librarians are not penalized for developing library resources and services to support education, research and scholarly communication.

Pam Lough

Kailua

Not all isle residents support gambling

I have to respectfully disagree with a letter regarding gambling (“Many local residents gamble, so legalize it,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, March 9).

The letter writer does not speak for me or anyone I know when he said that “the majority of the population gamble as a pastime to enjoy a little game of chance.”

That might be true, but I don’t like generalizations and I, among others, disagree, and our elected officials have kept gambling in the islands at bay. For the reasons usually discussed, it’s a bad idea.

The writer is correct in that those who want to gamble or play games of chance can head over to the Ninth Island (Las Vegas). I’m not being flip. These islands are special, free from a lot of the negatives that plague the mainland. I, for one, would like to keep them that way.

Andrea Tice

Kapolei

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