Welcome to the latest edition of This Week in Pensions! As we do most weeks, we have gathered the best 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:
- IPERS benefits are critical to Main Street businesses across the state by Alex Drzycimski: the campaign director of the Iowa Coalition for Retirement Security writes to the Des Moines Register to defend public pensions in Iowa. Each year, nearly $2 billion is spent in local economies throughout the state from public pension benefits. This helps keep local economies thriving.
- Kansas’ billion-dollar giveaway: Inside the state’s web of tax carve-outs by Jonathan Shorman: the state of Kansas loses more than $1 billion dollars each year through tax credits and exemptions. For a state struggling with a budget crisis, that is a substantial amount of money to forego each year. Rather than cutting funding for public pensions and education, Kansas politicians should be looking to fix their broken tax code.
- Kentucky Teachers Crowd Public Hearing Of New GOP Pension Bill by Ryland Barton: the Kentucky Senate Committee on State and Local Government held a hearing this week on Senate Bill 1, the controversial new pension bill that would undermine retirement security for working families in the Bluegrass State. Hundreds of public employees crowded into overflowing committee rooms to express their strong opposition to this legislation that would threaten the secure retirements of current and future public employees and retirees.
- Why consensus-building matters to pension review board by Max Patterson: the executive director the Texas Association of Public Employees’ Retirement Systems praises the consensus-seeking work of the Texas pension review board. Despite the appointment of a pension review board chair who is known to be hostile to public pensions, the Texas PRB has so far avoided any ideologically-driven attempts to eliminate public pensions and the retirement security they provide to millions of hard-working Texas public employees.
Be sure to check back next week for the latest news in the fight for a secure retirement!
