Welcome to the latest edition of This Week in Pensions! As we do most weeks, we have gathered the top stories about pensions and retirement security from the previous week. This is the news you need to know in the fight for a secure retirement.
Here are this week’s top stories:
- Omaha City Council will oppose bill that would change pensions for firefighters, police by Roseann Moring: the city of Omaha, NE is opposing a bill before the state legislature that would force the cities of Omaha and Lincoln to move their new police officers and firefighters into confusing and inefficient cash balance plans. In 2016, the city of Lincoln debated switching to a different retirement plan, but decided to stick with a traditional pension.
- Brownback’s budget remedy dramatically hikes KPERS’ unfunded liability by Tim Carpenter: Kansas is experiencing a budget crisis due to extreme tax cuts that have deprived the state of needed revenue. Gov. Brownback is proposing to solve the budget crisis by raiding the pension fund. His proposal would cap the level of state contributions to the pension fund and increase the unfunded liability by hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Beware: Chaffetz committee plans broad agenda affecting federal workers by Joe Davidson: Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is considering pursuing a number of changes to the benefits and employee protections of federal workers. Chief among them would be an attack on the defined benefit pensions of federal employees. Those employees already participate in the “three-legged stool” of retirement: a defined benefit pension; the defined contribution Thrift Savings Plan; and Social Security. Knocking out one leg of the stool- pensions- would just weaken the retirement security of federal employees.
We’ll be taking a week off next week, but be sure to check back in two weeks for the latest news in the fight for a secure retirement!
