A compromise bill that seems poised to give everyone something in the fight over pension reform is before the state House this week. It deserves support and approval from both chambers of our Legislature.

It’s long past time for our elected officials to step up and lead when it comes to solving Pennsylvania’s pension crisis.

The bill preserves the defined benefit plan that forms the core of the state retirement system for rank-and-file workers. It also promises no changes in future benefits for current state employees.

It differs from a reform plan passed last year by the state Senate in that it keeps more people in the pension pool for a longer period of time. It creates a “stacked-hybrid” plan that starts new hires off on a traditional defined benefit plan that converts into a 401(k)-style plan immediately for anyone making more than $50,000 per year, and for everyone after 25 years of service. Only state police are exempt from the system.

The compromise structure means some unions, like the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, have said they won’t oppose the law. Others, most notably the Pennsylvania State Education Association, continue to oppose it.

And some lawmakers aren’t happy either. Pension hawks like Blair County Republican John McGinnis see the bill, which appears set for final House approval this week, as lip service.

“Anybody who thinks or says ... we’re doing something historic here with creating a defined contribution plan, you’re crazy,” he said on Monday.

But the plan is expected to save an estimated $5 billion in future pension costs over the next 30 years. Yes, that’s less than the $18 billion saved under the original Senate plan, but even that number is a fraction of the $240 billion taxpayers would shoulder under the state’s current, defined benefit pension system, over the same time period.

And what’s the alternative?

Cut deeply and painfully into the state budget — to the tune of $3 billion per year for the next two decades — as McGinnis has argued? Crippling social services and growing average class sizes by “four or five” students across the state, as McGinnis has acknowledged could happen under his plan, isn’t a real-world solution.

How about blithely doing nothing about the pension crisis, as lawmakers in Harrisburg have done for years now? That hasn’t worked so far.

No, the only acceptable way forward was voiced by Pennsylvania’s Auditor General Eugene DePasquale in March, when he told business owners in Cranberry Township that actionable pension reform would require the kind of compromise we don’t usually see from our state legislators these days.

“You cut a deal that doesn’t fix everything, but moves the ball forward,” DePasquale said. “And you go out and tell your constituents why you did that.”

Depending on how you do the calculations, Pennsylvania’s two state-owned pension systems, SERS and PSERS, face unfunded liabilities of between $63 billion and $130 billion. How many reasons do lawmakers need to take action on this issue?