Majority of public pension plans have made recent reforms.

• Position: Brief article

A new issue brief from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence, "State and Local Pension Reform Since the Financial Crisis," examines how, why, and to what extent state and local governments have enacted pension reforms in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The study examines data from 2009 to 2014 for all 114 state plans and 46 local plans in the Public Plans Database (http:// publicplansdata.org), along with an additional 86 local plans.

The brief's key findings include:

* Seventy-four percent of state plans and 57 percent of large local plans have cut benefits or raised employee contributions to curb rising costs.

* Plans with a larger pension cost burden and lower initial employee contributions were more likely to enact such changes.

* States with the strongest...