Rep. Ron Kind's Pension Reform Bill Signed Into Law by President

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) announced that President Obama has signed into law a bill that will help charities and small business cooperatives continue to offer high-quality pension plans. The new law, the Cooperative and Small Employer Charity Pension Flexibility Act (H.R. 4275), was authored by Rep. Kind and Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN).

“This commonsense legislation, just signed into law by the President, will help charities and cooperatives in Wisconsin and around the country fulfill their pension obligations to current employees and attract new workers,” said Rep. Kind. “This is a concrete step toward ensuring that these pension plans will remain intact and robustly funded, so employees can count on their hard-earned pension benefits being there when they retire."

Charities and cooperatives are vital to our communities and neighborhoods, but the design of current pension funding laws, and artificially suppressed interest rates, began to jeopardize the continued impact these entities have in their communities. This law offers a permanent exemption for these groups so that they are not required to fund their pension plans at levels often associated with high-risk plans, despite the fact that these plans have virtually no risk of default.

The law received broad bipartisan support in Congress and was endorsed by Christian Schools International, the Jewish Federations of North America, United Way Worldwide, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Girl Scouts of the USA, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, UJA–Federation of New York, Inc., Hawkeye Insurance Association, NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, United Benefits Group, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the plan will raise $254 million over ten years. H.R. 4275 is the first stand-alone pension legislation signed into law in six years.