PhillyDeals: Pa. Rep. Grell is chosen to head PSERS

After a "national search," Pennsylvania's underfunded

Public School Employees' Retirement System

, based in Harrisburg, said Wednesday that it has offered its top job to a candidate from close to home: State Rep.

Glen R. Grell

(R., Cumberland).

Grell's predecessor, Jeffrey Clay, who retired a year ago, was paid $237,000 a year, which would be a big raise over the $86,000 Grell earned as a state representative. He is "still negotiating" his pay with PSERS, spokeswoman Evelyn T. Williams told me.

In a statement, Grell said he would miss representing his Harrisburg-area district, and thanked the PSERS trustees who selected him. The trustees - aides to the governor, teacher and school board representatives, and lawmakers - are familiar faces to Grell because he was a member of the board until January, when he was replaced by state House leaders with Rep. Stephen Bloom, also a Cumberland County Republican.

The $52 billion pension system announced the politician's selection a year after it started advertising for Clay's replacement. Williams said Grell was among the candidates pronounced qualified by search firm ETL Associates.

Grell did not return a call to his Harrisburg office.

As a representative, Grell drafted one of a number of competing pension-reform proposals, all of which failed to get through the General Assembly under Gov. Tom Corbett.

Grell's former boss, Gov. Tom Ridge, signed legislation that boosted school and state workers' pensions so many longtime employees could retire at close to their working pay - without supplying extra money to fund the increase.

Corbett compared the resulting large gap between pension assets and pension obligations, and the rising payments taxpayers have made to keep the gap from growing much larger, to "a tapeworm."

Like current Gov. Wolf, Grell in 2013 advocated borrowing billions of dollars at today's cheap rates, investing the money, and keeping the profits for PSERS, leaving taxpayers to repay the lenders over many years.

According to a review by the Pennsylvania Public Employees Retirement Commission, Grell's borrowing plan would strengthen PSERS and reduce its deficit.

As you might expect from a man whose seat in the legislature depended on Harrisburg-area voters, Grell also defended the idea of taxpayer-guaranteed pensions, upsetting those Republicans who want a private-sector-style savings plan that leaves retirees out of luck if the value of their investments drops.

But Grell also called for reforms that would have the effect of reducing pensions for future hires. That earned his plans criticism from pro-labor Democrats.

If state officials sign off, Grell will leave the Assembly to run PSERS effective May 1.

A graduate of Dickinson Law School, Grell was first elected to the House in 2004. He worked from 2000 to 2004 for the law firm Klett Rooney Lieber & Schorling in Harrisburg, and before that as a lawyer for the Ridge administration.