Lawmakers vote to raid pension assets for benefit increase
by Ray Carter, Director, Center for Independent Journalism
May 15, 2020 -- Lawmakers voted Friday to approve an unfunded increase in state workers’ retirement benefits, a step that accelerates the ongoing financial deterioration of Oklahoma’s state pension systems and reduces current workers’ future retirement security.
House Bill 3350 provides a 4 percent “cost of living adjustment” (COLA) to most retired state government workers, but provides no funding to cover the cost, instead draining the pension systems’ corpus for the cash.
Opponents noted the legislation repeats the mistakes of the past, when lawmakers routinely raided pension assets to provide COLAs as a vote-buying exercise during election years, and ultimately left the Oklahoma government with one of the worst-funded pension systems in the nation.
“Today, your legislation gives an unfunded, 700 million dollar benefit to state retirees—who I agree deserve it—but it’s not paid for,” said Sen. Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle.
Sen. Marty Quinn, R-Claremore, said he was “not going to crawl under a rock and ignore the financial mistakes that continue to be made by this body and other bodies so that people can ‘like’ me.”
“Why are we taking the same financial destructive path of previous administrations?” Quinn asked. “You know what I’m talking about. A system that was one of the fifth-worst systems in the entire United States, almost $16 billion underfunded, giving away COLAs in election years. We’re doing the same thing. Just a different group of people.”
“I’m not going to vote to raid the funds,” said Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville.
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from MuskogeePolitico.com
