A bill in the state House would dismantle Minnesota's pension system for its public employees, a deliberately provocative proposal that its author said is designed to jump-start a discussion about the cost of employee benefits.
"It's serious -- but do I think the state should get out of the pension system in its entirety?" said Rep. Mark Buesgens, R-Jordan. "I'm not delusional enough to think that."
Nonetheless, "public attention is something we have to have on this issue," Buesgens said. "To be perfectly frank, this is probably the most extreme position I could take."
That's one reason Buesgens' bill, introduced Thursday, has no co-sponsors, he said. It's essentially a "placeholder," designed to get at least a committee hearing and he plans to request one Monday from the House Government Operations and Elections Committee.
Next door in Wisconsin, public pensions are only one of the issues that have convulsed state government, spawning massive protests at the state capitol in Madison. "It doesn't directly have to do with [what's going on in] Wisconsin," Buesgens said, adding "any state could become a tinderbox over public employee benefits like Wisconsin said.
Minnesota's liabilities and financial obligations to its employees amount to "a ticking time bomb -- and not just in Minnesota, but around the country," he said. "There's going to be angst and anguish all over the country over things like pensions, collective bargaining or the right to strike."
The bill, which Buesgens called "very simple," would abolish the state's public employee pension system on July 1, blocking the state from contributing to it after that date; employees would be barred from contributing to it, while no longer earning service credit for their pensions.
Fully anticipating howls of opposition from his DFL colleagues and the state's public employee unions, "I wanted to get some attention" for the issue, he said.
