Taxpayers are covering 56 percent of the pension plan contributions for Louisiana State Troopers. Moreover, a portion of the fee residents pay for their driver's license is also used to help fund the police retirement plan. At a time when rising liabilities threaten the stability of the entire state pension system, state troopers should not be excluded from policy changes, and NFIB official says.

State lawmakers were not thinking about long term costs when they passed a law back in 1999 that allowed for taxpayers to pick up all or part of the tab for employee contributions to a local pension plan. Pension reform proposals will be up for discussion in the upcoming state legislative session

Rep. Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell) has proposed an across-the-board increase in pension contributions from state workers that would include police officers, judges and university professors. He credits Gov. Bobby Jindal for calling attention to the challenge of rising liabilities, but favors changes that are not limited to the "rank-and-file" workers.

Dennis Woltering of Eyewitness News examines Louisiana's public pension crisis with Kevin Kane, in the wake of a new Pelican Institute report.