Retirees wary of plan to refinance KPERS debt

Virgil Funk is nervous about Gov. Laura Kelly’s proposal to refinance the pension obligations of retired state workers and public teachers.
Funk, 82, retired in 1998 after working for 27 years as an educator in Topeka schools. He joined about 100 others from the Kansas Coalition of Public Employees in a rally Monday at the Statehouse.
Kelly for a second year in a row has called on lawmakers to extend debt payments to the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System by 10 years as a means of lowering annual payments now. The process, which is similar to taking out a second mortgage on a house, is known as reamortizing.
(Read more: Community – Cherokee County News Advocate)