Governor McDonnell has just upped the ante with the VRS, the Virginia pension fund. He gets off on the wrong foot by saying that the pension fund has been problematic for years and years. That simply is not true according to reports over the years from outside sources and independent audits. VRS has only come under fire in recent years, specifically after the crash of 2008. McDonnell’s attempts to paint the plan as compromised and unsustainable are purely political.
McDonnell has outlined his plan which will affect nearly 90,000 state employees, according to the Washington Post:
RICHMOND – Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) proposed Thursday that 87,000 state employees begin making annual 5 percent contributions – the first in nearly three decades – to the state’s retirement fund as a way to shore up the commonwealth’s pension system.
Virginia is one of only four states where government workers make no annual contributions to their retirement fund, the result of a 27-year-old deal in which the state agreed to pick up employee costs in lieu of a pay raise in 1983.
