Wyoming State legislator Tom Lubnau (R-Campbell County) appeared on a local talk radio station Thursday morning to discuss what he calls two rhinoceroses in the living room:  the state’s retirement system and health care spending.  Specifically, he says even though Wyoming’s retirement system is the best-funded program in the nation, state legislators need to take action to avert a big problem.

As it stands now, Wyoming’s retirement program for state employees is 86.4 percent funded.

“What that means is that that’s almost 16 percent unfunded,” remarks the House District 31 representative to News/Talk 1270 KIML host Glenn Woods.

Lubnau says Wyoming’s legislators have a moral obligation to protect the people who are on the state’s retirement program from losing their entire nest egg.

“There’s a Wyoming statute that says the state taxpayers aren’t obligated to fund retirement if there’s a shortfall,” explains Lubnau.  “If you’re out you’re out. But that’s not right for people who’ve worked their entire career, paid into the program, had the state pay into the program, and then all of a sudden they find themselves with no retirement.”

He says the Wyoming Retirement System has a set of predictions for the next five to eight years under different scenarios.  Depending on the rate of return, the state’s retirement system could become insolvent as early as 2015.

“We can wait for three years and have a big crash, or we can make a little correction now and have a little bit smaller crash,” Lubnau warns.

This year the state legislature meets for its budget session. Next year will be the legislature’s general session.

“Then we’ll be in the budget session the year before we have the crash, and then we will be talking about drastic measures,” Lubnau says. “We’ll be talking about things like state income taxes, increased sales tax, putting sales tax back on food, and trying to find money every way we can.”

Lubnau says if the state’s legislators want to ensure state retirees receive the benefits they were promised, the legislature has to take action now.

“Unless you’re the federal government the equation is simple,” he says. “You have income and expenses, and if your expenses are bigger than your income you have to cut your expenses or increase your income. I’ve made my legislative career working on the income side trying to protect our primary industries and expand our income elsewhere, but we’ve got to make sure our spending is in control.”

Bold Republic with Glenn Woods is Northeast Wyoming’s most popular talk radio show.  It airs each weekday from 6:00 am to 10:00 am on News/Talk 1270-AM KIML.  Visit Glenn’s website at www.BoldRepublic.com for past archives of his radio program.