Everyone agrees that Pennsylvania has a funding problem with its two biggest public pension systems, the Public School Employees' Retirement System and the State Employees' Retirement System. They are in debt to the tune of about $50 billion total.

The problems began back in 2001. With the stock market riding high and pension funds rolling in profits, Gov. Tom Ridge and members of the state Legislature increased pension benefits for teachers and state employees by 25 percent. Legislators also gave themselves a 50 percent bump in their pension benefits.Then, when the state had some difficulties with its budgets several years later, legislators declined to make the state's annual contributions to the pension plans. With state employees continuing to make their contributions, the pension funds remained profitable until the stock market began tanking in 2007. The pension funds soon turned from black to red, where they've remained ever since.Concerned that taxpayers could be saddled with huge tax increases to make up the deficits, Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Tom Wolf have come up with proposals to tackle the problem.And to absolutely no one's surprise, the plans differ greatly.Republican lawmakers want to move new state and school employee hires into a 401(k)-style pension plan, providing up to a 5 percent employer match. They point out that many private businesses have had to take similar action, noting that few companies offer defined pension payments nowadays.Democrats, however, contend that such a plan would do nothing to solve the immediate problem of pension deficits. Most of the employees involved with the pension funds are union workers with legal contracts that can't be broken. They note that the new pension plans wouldn't take effect for at least 20 to 30 or even 40 years when the new hires retire. In the meantime, without contributions from new hires, the current pension would go into even further debt, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.Wolf proposed a number of reforms which some GOP lawmakers praised, including firing private money managers to reduce excessive fees and overreliance on high-risk investment strategies and taking out a $3 billion bond to help reduce the debt and alleviate possible tax increases for commonwealth residents."The governor has recognized there is a pension problem, That's good, that's new, and I think he got one or two things right," said Rep. John McGinnis, R-Blair, who holds a Ph.D. in finance from Penn State and was a member of the 2014 Blue Ribbon Panel on Pension Funding. However, he noted that the pension funds need more of a major overhaul rather than the tuneup being proposed by Wolf.State Sen. Jake Corman, the leader of the Republicans contends he won't consider any of Wolf's spending proposals until some type of deal is done on pension reform.So, who will win this game of chicken? Will Wolf concede and give in to the Republicans' call for a switch to 401(k) plans and perhaps get some concessions on his plan to reduce property taxes?Or will Wolf stand firm and perhaps risk a budget deadlock, which would grind state government to a halt?Rhe next several months should be one of the most interesting periods in the history of the state Legislature.The (Uniontown) Herald-Standard