By Charles Thompson
PennLive
On a 28-19 vote, the Senate’s Republican majority carried a major public employee pension reform measure to passage Wednesday afternoon.
All Republicans present voted for the bill except one, Sen. Stewart Greenleaf of Montgomery County. All Democrats present voted against it.
The bill, as passed, would for the first time in more than 30 years attempt to roll back future pension benefit formulas for current state employees and school teachers, albeit only for their work after its enactment.
Supporters say it is needed to rid the state budget of a fiscal tapeworm that is crowding out other needed investments.
Opponents, including the state’s major public sector unions, have vowed a court challenge if that kind of language is passed into law.
The vote’s immediate impact was that the 30-member Senate Republican caucus sent a strong endorsement of their leaders’ vows that serious pension reform must be a part of the upcoming state budget deliberations.
And unlike on some other issues taken up this week, there’s no early, easily-discernable sign of common ground.
As for the bill itself, it now goes to the House of Representatives, also Republican-controlled, for further consideration.
Meanwhile, at an unrelated press conference earlier Wednesday, Gov. Tom Wolf said that while he and his staff are still reviewing the Senate’s bill, their first impression is “it doesn’t seem that it meets my standards of fairness to all employees.”
Wolf, a Democrat, has proposed a plan that centers on the use of a $3 billion bond issue and savings from reductions in fees paid to external investment managers to try to wring savings out of the systems.
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