EDITORIAL: State must change rules for retirement
The Daily Advertiser (excerpt)

Blueprint Louisiana welcomes the renewed focus from the Jindal administration on needed reforms in the state's retirement systems to put the systems on better financial footing. These proposals should not be viewed as an attack on public employees. They are simply an acknowledgement that Louisiana's public retirement systems are on an unsustainable path. The unfunded accrued liability in the state's retirement systems currently stands at $18.5 billion, a number that has tripled in the past two decades. What that means is that the systems are $18.5 billion short of the retirement benefits promised to existing state employees. The systems have on-hand 60 percent or less of what they need to pay out promised benefits.

State government — i.e., the taxpayers — is paying nearly $2 billion just this year on state retirement costs. If we began to address this problem in a real manner, maybe some of that $2 billion could be shifted to other important state priorities such as higher education, health care, transportation or coastal restoration.

A reasonable and responsible redesign of the system is the only way the state can keep its retirement promise to current employees. The systems and retirement offerings are outdated and need to be adjusted for today's workforce. Many of today's employees expect retirement portability so when they change jobs they can roll their savings and earnings to date into an IRA or other account. This happens in the private sector all the time.