Views expressed in opinion columns are the author’s own.

Since the start of the Great Recession in 2008, the debate over pension funding levels has become commonplace in Maryland’s General Assembly. As the state’s pension fund, with only 70 percent of the money needed to provide benefits to retiring employees, begins to account for severe underperformance of its investment, legislators and Gov. Larry Hogan will struggle to provide adequate additional funding.

But there’s an equally important question that isn’t being asked enough: Why is Maryland’s pension system still structured for a 20th-century workforce?

Pensions, like salary or healthcare benefits, are part of the incentives an employer can provide to attract employees to work for them. The current pension system fails to meet the needs of millennial workers, and therefore fails to attract top talent to the state government.

Not convinced the pension system isn’t tailored to today’s workforce? Try asking yourself and your friends a few simple questions:

• Do you want to work for a decade at the same company right out of college?

• Do you want to control the investment of your retirement funds to match your goals in life?

• Do you want to control how you receive the benefits you’ve earned throughout your employment during retirement?

Retirement is a long way off for many of us, but I would be willing to bet that many of us would answer no to the first question and yes to the latter two. Our generation is more likely to move between multiple jobs with the desire to control our own money.

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A 2016 study by Gallup found that 60 percent of millennials were open to moving to a new job and that more than one-fifth had moved jobs in the past year alone. If the job market improved, 36 percent of millennials said they would look for a different job in the next year, a full 15 percent higher than workers of other generations.

A separate report conducted by North Carolina State University reported that, over a 23-year period, younger professionals consistently chose plans with higher mobility of retirement benefits between jobs when they were offered. Our generation values mobility, freedom and personal control.

But the state pension system is antithetical to these values in a number of ways. First, the pension system has a 10-year vesting period on state contributions to a retirement account. In plain English: throughout a person’s career, both the employer (the state) and employee contribute a percentage of the employee’s paycheck to their retirement account. But under the current system, an employee who wants to transition to work outside of state employment isn’t entitled to the state’s contribution unless they’ve worked for the state for at least 10 years. The state’s pension system discourages a generation of job seekers who value being able to switch jobs and still have a secure retirement.

Secondly, employees aren’t given flexibility in how their retirement funds are invested. Currently, all contributions from the state and employee are put in one state pension fund — which has been severely underperforming as of late — with no ability to control the sort of investment options their money is going toward. But this one-size-fits-all approach is unappealing. If given the ability to choose for themselves, an employee might practice more aggressive investing earlier in their working life and more conservative later on.

The state also provides little flexibility in how employees can receive benefits. Upon retirement, an employee can receive structured payments equivalent to a percentage of their salary for the remainder of their lifetime, or elect for payments to go to a designated beneficiary. But what if employees want something else? Some employees may choose to retire early and want to transfer that money over to another account. Others might want the ability to take out a lump sum for their immediate use. Still, others might prefer an annuity.

It is obvious that Maryland’s pension offerings to many state employees are simply out of date. The state would attract greater talent, especially among millennials, if it offered greater portability of benefits, flexibility in how benefits are conferred upon retirement and the ability to control how retirement funds are being invested. If the Maryland’s government is going to serve its citizens, it should first look to how it serves its own employees.

Sam Wallace is a public policy graduate student. He can be reached at samhwallace@gmail.com.