COLUMBUS (AP) — The Ohio Senate has fast-tracked legislation stabilizing Ohio’s public pension funds, with both parties supporting passage of four landmark bills as early as next week.
The Ohio House is unlikely to move the bills until at least summer, as lawmakers there wait for results of a state-commissioned study on the retirement systems.
Republican Senate President Tom Niehaus and Senate Democratic Leader Eric Kearney said today that it’s time to move the bills. The funds are losing as much as $2 million a day during the delay.
The bills contain fiscal adjustments in premiums and payouts that officials say are necessary to secure retiree benefits long-term for teachers, firefighters, police and other public workers.
Ohio has some of the largest public pension funds in the nation.
Comments
It’s incredibly important for Ohio to push pension reform. If you look at the states that Ohio most resembles in terms of population to unfunded liability ratios, the one that most resembles Ohio is Rhode Island (http://eng.am/vYjPtl). Rhode Island was pushed to the precipice of insolvency due to pension mismanagement and had to resort to radical reforms to keep the entire system from going over. If Ohio wants to avoid a similar fate it must make some tough choices now, otherwise it will have no choice but to severely slash benefits even more in the future.