What To Do About Underfunded PERS

The Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) is underfunded by more than $12 billion which is about 62% of what is needed to fund its liabilities. This threatens both retiree benefits and costs to taxpayers. State employees are currently paying 9% of their pretax income into the system (up from 7.25% in 2010) and taxpayers are paying 12.93%. The taxpayer portion is projected to rise to 14.35% in 2013. As the size of government continues to grow, we will continue to have less private sector taxpayers contributing to more public sector retirees. Is it a viable solution to have taxpayers contributing at a 60% higher rate than the PERS members? Should PERS members contribute the same as taxpayers or is this a necessary benefit for public employees that make (on average) less than private sector employees?