The Kansas Public Employees Retirement System study commission’s recommendation to move future state employees to a 401(k)-style plan will take some serious legislative review and debate. But one aspect of it is a no-brainer (though lawmakers may not see it that way): including legislators in the new system. “The idea here, at least philosophically, is that the legislators do not have a richer benefit than our KPERS employees, said commission member Rebecca Proctor. As we said in an Eagle editorial in October, “if lawmakers are going to require schoolteachers and other public employees to pay more to help shore up KPERS, it’s only fair that they also eliminate some of the special rules that greatly inflate their own pensions.” As it is, lawmakers’ pension benefits are calculated as if they are paid every day of the year and get a per diem expense allotment for a year lasting 372 days.
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