Amid high vacancies and turnover in the ranks of public employees, some lawmakers are hoping that a major overhaul of Alaska's public retirement system could be adopted in the final days of the legislative session.

It's a tall order. Alaska's public workers have been without a guaranteed pension since 2006, when lawmakers did away with the defined benefit system that was plagued by underfunding. Since then, labor groups representing teachers, public safety workers and other public-sector employees have increasingly raised alarm about the long-term impacts of the move, which meant fewer employees were incentivized to remain in Alaska for the duration of their careers, and many were lured to other states where benefits were more generous.

Reinstating some form of a guaranteed public pension has been one of the bipartisan Senate majority's key priorities for over a year, but opposition from some Republican House members has stalled the progress of a bill that the Senate adopted last year.

The policy change has received limited attention this year as lawmakers had their eyes on addressing education- and energy-related legislation. But a last-minute effort could push the plan to the finish line before lawmakers' May 15 deadline to end the current session.

Senate Bill 88 would offer public workers a new model: a return to defined benefits — meaning a guaranteed pension — with key differences from the pre-2006 plan that are meant to spread the risk between the state and its employees, and ensure the state does not risk unfunded liabilities as it did in the 2000s.

The Republican-led House majority has slow-rolled its consideration. In an unusual move, the bill last year was relegated to a newly formed subcommittee of the House State Affairs Committee, which has met only once since the current session began in January.

In late April, House Minority Leader Calvin Schrage, an Anchorage independent, attempted on the House floor to discharge the Senate bill from the State Affairs Committee. The procedural move would have relinquished control over the fate of the bill from that subcommittee, sending it instead to the House Labor and Commerce Committee — which appears to view action on pension plans more favorably.

The discharge attempts failed twice in the same week, with all House majority Republicans opposing the move. But the split was narrow. In the second attempt, 19 out of 40 House members voted in favor of the move.

House Republicans who opposed the discharge vote said they were still waiting on new actuarial analysis requested by Senate members earlier this year. Those analyses were available as of the end of April.

Sen. Cathy Giessel, an Anchorage Republican sponsoring the bill, said she shared a packet of information with House members following the discharge attempts that she said would "encourage" them to view the bill as "an answer to the current statewide recruitment and retention crisis." She met with House majority leadership members on Tuesday, asking for them to schedule the bill for a hearing.

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