The 2018 state legislative session begins Monday and one issue in question is public employees’ pension.

State Senator Rich Taylor (D) predicts what may happen to the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System, or IPERS, “I’m sure that there will be a bill to further punish public employees, by trying to take away their IPERS from them or destroy the IPERS system. I’m sure that’ll be a bill that will be brought up that I won’t be in support of.”

State Representative Jarad Klein (R) contradicts Taylor, “You know a lot of people think that we’re going to do something to IPERS. We’re not going to do anything to IPERS. I don’t know of any bill that is coming out of the House, and I don’t anticipate doing anything with that.”

Concern over public employees’ pension comes after the legislature passed a bill last year scaling back the collective bargaining law, with a provision that limits union contract negotiations to only base wages, excluding issues like health insurance, staff reduction, and leaves of absence.