Lame duck Democrats on Thursday moved legislation that will add billions to Michigan’s existing mountain of pension debt, with no public testimony, actuarial analysis, or questions from lawmakers.

“Because of time constraints, we won’t be taking testimony on any of these bills this evening,” House Labor Committee Chair Jim Haadsma, D-Battle Creek, said as the committee approved several pension bills. “You can submit written testimony. You too, can submit cards either supportive of or in opposition to the various bills.”

Earlier tonight, the Michigan House Labor Committee rammed through several pension re-opening bills that will pile more than $20 billion onto the state’s mountain of pension debt. No actuarial analysis. No public testimony. Not even member questions or statements. “We ran out of… pic.twitter.com/gdwUAb9Ddp

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“What I’d like to do now is get these bills to the House floor,” said Haadsma, who was voted out of office on Nov. 5.

The bills included legislation that will open up a Pension Plus 2 plan in the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System for teachers and school support staff that ended in 2023.

The Pension Plus 2 plan was available alongside a 401(k) plan established by Republicans from 2018 to 2023 with a 75-day opt in window, with those that do not opt in defaulting to the 401(k) plan. Legislation sponsored by state Rep. Matt Koleszar, D-Plymouth, aims to reopen the Pension Plus 2 program for the first four months of 2025 to allow teachers in the 401(k) plan an irrevocable option to switch, along with an option to purchase a five-year service credit that would allow participants to retire early, The Detroit News reports.

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“We have suffered from a massive teacher shortage and one of the biggest reasons is we don’t have a good retirement system for teachers,” Koleszar said. “The big sales point back in 2018 was, ‘Hey, if you give them a 401(k), it’s affordable.’ Sure was. As conditions in the classroom got worse, they took their 401(k) and left.”

Koleszar’s bill also permanently sets the retirement age at 60 and makes adjustments to retiree healthcare matches.

Another bill approved by the House Labor Committee on Thursday would create a new pension plan for members of the State Employees’ Retirement System, with the ability of existing employees to opt in during the first quarter of 2025, also with a five-year service credit.

The SERS closed its pension plan to new hires in 1997, and the traditional pension option for teachers ended in 2010.

While the House Fiscal Agency suggests the cost of the changes will depend on the number of employees that opt in, it’s clear “the bill would result in the employer taking on additional financial risk, which would lead to increased costs in the long term if the pension or hybrid plan were to develop an unfunded actuarial accrued liability at any point in the future.”

The employer, of course, is taxpayers.

The Reason Foundation, a Libertarian think tank, submitted testimony that noted “preliminary actuarial modeling … found that under HB 6061, Michigan SERS’ unfunded liabilities could rise to well over $8 billion over the next 15 years under realistic market underperformance scenarios.”

That pension debt is currently at about $5.4 billion.

Also, Reason testified, “the bill has not received a fiscal note, a long-term actuarial analysis, any pension stress testing of the new design, nor any scrutiny from legislative finance and retirement committees, leaving important questions for taxpayers unanswered.”

The testimony continued: “Our overall assessment is that HB 6061 would bring back a system that exposes taxpayers to the same risk of unfunded liabilities that prompted the closing of that pension almost three decades ago.”

Other legislation that cleared the House Labor Committee would expand the Michigan State Police retirement plan to corrections officers, conservation officers, and other law enforcement, allowing them to purchase all credit in the SERS and transfer it to the state police system, The News reports.

That change would also come with significant costs that the House Fiscal Agency said are impossible to calculate.

“The magnitude of the initial cost increase would depend o the number of employees that converted to the Pension Plus plan, the replacement rate of the employees under the old system with new employees in the Pension Plus system, and calculated contribution rates,” an analysis read.

Reason offered testimony that estimated the cost of legislation, Senate Bills 165-167, would run between $800 million and $1.85 billion, based on performance over the last 30 years, while the teacher pension changes, House Bill 6060, would add “$17 billion to $20 billion in new employer costs over the next few decades.”

Reason testified “risks to K-12 service delivery, long-term school district financial solvency, and the entire state budget are even more extreme.”

David Guenthner, vice president of government affairs for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, noted House Labor Committee Chair Haadsma’s decision to block public testimony for the sake of time was a bunch of baloney.

“UPDATE: Coming up on 3 hours since House Labor Committee adjourned,” he posted to X Thursday night. “But the committee was ‘out of time.’”

Video, minutes, and testimony from the Labor Committee’s Thursday meeting were not posted to the Michigan House of Representatives website.

Voters ended Michigan Democrats’ first government trifecta in 40 years, flipping control of the House to Republicans on Nov. 5. Democrats have just a handful of session days left in 2024, before Republicans regain control in January.