Governor Rick Snyder is going after Michigan’s mountain of unfunded retiree liabilities. He created a task forceto look into “responsible retirement reform.”
Last year, Republican lawmakers tried and failed to overhaul public employee pensions and retirement health benefits. They said it was an effort to fix Michigan’s unfunded liability problem.
Now this task force will come up with a list of pension and health care reforms, hopefully by this spring.
Democratic Representative Andy Schor is on the committee. He said they are trying to find a balanced approach.
“We need to really dig down into, into what the causes are and how we can appropriately solve this problem without going after those who have best supported us over many years,” he said.
Schor said no local governments will go bankrupt tomorrow, but they need to be proactive.
“You know we, we have to make sure that we can pay off those debts in the long term, and this is a good time to start looking at what can be done,” he said. “Again, without going after our employees.”
The task force is made up of finance, management, and investment experts as well as lawmakers.
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—Cheyna Roth is a reporter for the Michigan Public Radio network. Contact WEMU News at734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
