Rep. Owen Donohoe – Kansas State Representative 39th District

Pension Reform in Kansas

The pension reform issues we’ll discuss in the 2012 legislative session are:

• transparency in calculating and publicly reporting pension liability
• spending reductions needed to address this huge debt
• reforms in public employee and union contracts
• establishing a 401k-style defined contribution system for public employees
• getting schools on uniform accounting standards
• adjustments in contributions by current employees and retirees
• restructuring of salary calculations so employees don’t take advantage of pension benefits

KPERS Reform in Kansas

In 2012, the state of Kansas plans to borrow $5 BILLION to fund KPERS (Kansas Public Employees Retirement System) for the short-term. This would be the largest loan in state history – and it still wouldn’t come close to digging us out of the KPERS deficit hole, which has been estimated at $20 billion plus.

The KPERS Study Commission is expected to decide whether to recommend the loan to legislators for a vote in January as part of a KPERS overhaul plan. The commission’s decision likely will occur by December 2011.

Currently, 1,500 government entities, mostly local governments and school districts, provide retirement benefits for 279,000 employees through KPERS. School districts and other government employers don’t currently report retirement system funding in their financial statements. More on this >>

Examples of successful pension reform in other states

State leaders across the nation are faced with unsustainable public worker retirements and crushing state debt as a result of it. Republicans have been championing reforms of public pension systems, and now Democrats are seeing the light and making reforms necessary to turn their states around. Rhode Island is a great example of this. >>