Last week in Alaska, Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel and House Majority Leader Chuck Kopp signalled that passage of a bill restoring a defined benefit pension for Alaska public employees was unlikely to pass both chambers before the 2025 legislative session ends next month.
A piece from the Anchorage Daily News noted that last year, the Senate adopted Leader Giessel’s bill only to have it get stuck in the previously conservative-controlled House. This time, Giessel stated the Senate is waiting on the House to act on the bill first.
Representative Kopp said on Tuesday that pension reform remains a priority for his caucus. However, progress on the legislation was slowed by an “unexpectedly protracted debate on the operating budget in the House Finance Committee.”
In February, Kopp said the bill would be voted on by the full House by the end of March. March came and went, and the bill remains before the House Finance Committee. On Tuesday, Kopp said he expected House Bill 78 — which would create a new defined benefit program for the public sector — to be before the full House for a vote by the first week of May.
The rest of the article provides a thorough synopsis of the issue.
Since then, Alaska has offered its teachers, police officers, firefighters, and other public sector workers access to a defined contribution plan similar to a 401(k), under which workers could contribute to an investment account but had no option for guaranteed income from the state in retirement.
That change has left many public sector workers in Alaska without enough funds to securely retire. It has also made Alaska the only state in the union to offer its teachers neither a pension nor access to Social Security.
Public sector union leaders and agency heads now say that the lack of a defined benefit option is a key driver in the state’s recruitment and retention crisis, which has led to high vacancy rates in Alaska school districts, state agencies, and law enforcement posts.