Bucks County State Representative Kathy Watson says the Pension Relief Act, passed earlier this year in the house, will help head off a coming crisis in the pension plan for state employees and public school teachers. She says it’s only a short-term fix, spreading payments over a longer period, but it’s a good start.  She says any cuts in benefits will affect future employees, not today’s pensioners.

“Legally you can’t take away what they paid into in their pensions.  There’s going to be a time going forward when we’re not going to have that system, but we still have a huge obligation under the old system.”

Watson says the legislation won’t take the pension crisis away, but it brought the big players to the table to start talking about short-term and long-term solutions.