Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) emailed state employees in advance of a public announcement of his “proposal to reform the critically underfunded and structurally imbalanced Virginia Retirement System.”

In response, I would like to state I do appreciate the need to fund the VRS. But I am disgusted it is done on the backs of the public employees. These employees, in many cases, could have made more money in the private sector, but chose to continue to work in the public sector for less pay but more job security and a retirement benefit. As we have seen during the past few years, the job security isn’t much, and now the retirement benefit also is becoming a burden.

Virginia has underfunded the retirement system for the past 20 years. It wasn’t the state employees who set the budgets and made these choices. But it is on the backs of the state employees that the Virginia legislature plans on righting its wrongs —and we public employees should be “thankful.”

It is just more government and big business making profits on the backs of the workers.

Mary Hanna, Albemarle