Teachers' pension fund needs aid, Oklahoma official says

Meacham, who did not seek re-election, said he will spend the last five months of his term working with legislators for ways to improve the Oklahoma Teachers Retirement System.

The pension fund as of June 30 totaled about $8.3 billion. During the last fiscal year its pension plan was funded to 49.8 percent, meaning it has a $9.5 billion unfunded liability. Most experts prefer pension plans to be funded at 80 percent.

"If that's not a cry for help and legislative action, I don't know what is," Meacham said. "I can't leave this office in good conscience without doing all I can do to try to get the Legislature to bite the bullet and address this system and to a lesser extent our other systems once and for all."

Meacham, who also serves as chairman of the Oklahoma State Pension Commission, said possible changes in the teachers' retirement system include teachers contributing more to the plan, reducing benefits paid by the plan or revamping the plan. The state pays about $850 million annually into the system in the form of direct allocations and a percentage of the employee and employer contributions.

"Can we afford to keep putting more and more state dollars into this and taking away from core services eventually like education, like health care, like public safety?" he asked.

"You have to start looking at doing things differently," he said.

"We're paying out more than we're putting in," he said. "We're spending ourselves literally into this black hole that just keeps getting bigger and deeper and darker and it's something that we as a state must address."