A Philadelphia Daily News columnist wrote recently that the public pension crisis in Pennsylvania is like the weather — everybody likes to talk about it, but nobody does anything about it.

That could soon be changing. At least that’s the word from Republicans who say they will release their plan to reform pensions in the coming days.

They also are repeating the GOP message to Gov. Tom Wolf that progress must be made on the state pension crisis before bargaining will begin on the governor’s $31.6 billion budget plan. The result could be some wheeling and dealing in which pension reform is packaged with a budget deal giving Wolf some of his priorities, and maybe State Store privatization, which is something Republicans have supported for years.

Pension reform is difficult, that’s why it hasn’t been done before, despite some minor tweaking that was falsely marketed as reform. There will be no winners, just different levels of losers, meaning people feeling some financial pain.

The best solution for fair pension reform is for the pain to be shared. And that means taxpayers will take some kind of a hit, but they should not be alone — future state hires and even current pension beneficiaries, including lawmakers, should also be expected to give something.

The pension crisis in Pennsylvania is real. The underfunded amount or “pension gap” in the two large pensions for state employees, lawmakers and public school teachers is about $53 billion.

State Sen. Jake Gorman, R-Centre, has suggested shifting beneficiaries into a 401(k) style program as a way to save money and reduce taxpayers’ risks. He suggested lawmakers should move themselves into a defined-contribution program, 401(k) system, and away from the current defined-benefit program as a way to set an example for state employees and public school teachers.

Other suggestions include reducing benefits, which in other states has led to legal challenges by public employee unions arguing that pension benefits cannot be changed by lawmakers.

As pension reform is debated, voters and taxpayers should remember the 2001 “pension grab” in which state lawmakers quietly voted themselves a 50-percent pension increase. Once that news broke, other state workers and public school teachers demanded a similar deal, so lawmakers quickly passed a 25-percent pension boost for those groups. Soon after those actions, the stock market tanked, shifting the pensions from overfunded to underfunded. The pension gap has been growing ever since.

For his part, Gov. Wolf doesn’t want to make any changes; he just wants to borrow $3 billion as a short-term infusion into the pension funds. But despite today’s low interest rates, that debt would have to be repaid — and adding $3 billion debt to ease an existing $50 billion debt is not a solution.

Wolf does have a good idea in saying the state should reduce the management fees paid by the state pensions. This could be accomplished by shifting parts of the two big pensions from managed funds to stock index funds.

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, says he believes Republicans have leverage to get real pension reform done this year. He says public opinion backs meaningful reform, because “the alternative, tax increases, broad based tax increases, don’t have support.”

Pension reform is long overdue in Pennsylvania. The coming weeks might represent the best opportunity in years for real reform — and relief for taxpayers.

— JLWIII