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OK, so I had a bit of a process lesson this morning at the conference committee hearing on SB 125, the PERS/TRS fix bill. And I learned what the plan is.

Conference committees are appointed by the heads of the House and Senate when the two bodies can’t agree on the details of a bill. In the case of SB 125, which spells out how much of the pension debt the state will pick up and how much public employers will pay, the difference between the versions passed by the two bodies was small, and the Senate failed to accept the House changes largely for political reasons. That was last spring, nearly a year ago. Since then, some of the numbers in the bill have changed -- the long-term contribution rates needed to whittle down the debt, for instance. Conference committees are given different levels of authority, and the one that met this morning didn’t have a whole lot. Members could only pick language that was already in one of the two versions, not start futzing with the numbers.

Sen. Lyman Hoffman said the committee could make some changes if it asked for “limited” powers, but he recommended instead that it disband and ask that a second conference committee be appointed with “free” powers to go in and make the changes. That’s what they did. And that was my lesson.

Now for the plan. The bill essentially sets uniform contribution rates for public employers. For most employers, the rates are lower than what they would be otherwise (with the state picking up the difference), but for few, they’re not. The current bill has a somewhat complex transitional provision that would hold harmless those employers that actually lose out by the “fix,” at least for a few years.

Now apparently the plan is to pull that out and just give those employers grants in the capital budget to make up the difference.

The so-called “hero” employers that tried to pay down their own chunk of the debt will be treated the same as they are under the current version.