The financial problems of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System have been growing for years under a number of governors. This situation may not be entirely of Gov. Sam Brownback’s making, but he certainly can make it worse.

The governor already has taken one step in that direction by withholding $58 million that the state was supposed to contribute to KPERS over the next six months and using that money to help balance the current year’s budget. Now, Brownback is pushing a risky plan that calls for issuing $1.5 billion in bonds and investing that money with the assumption that the state will make more money on those investments than it pays out in interest on the bonds.

The governor’s proposal is to sell the bonds for a term of 30 years at an interest rate not to exceed 5 percent. State officials estimate they can get a return of 8 percent on the money they invest and use that money to pay down KPERS’ long-term funding gap of about $9 billion.

If the earning estimates the governor is using pan out, this plan might work, but a lot can happen in the 30 years the state would be committed to this strategy. The state already is experimenting with this strategy having issued $500 million in pension bonds in 2004. The state issues those bonds at 5.39 percent and has earned, on average, 7.45 percent on investment, which is below the estimates the governor is using now. According to its website KPERS’ return on investment for the 10 years ending on Dec. 31, 2013 was 7.8 percent. That percentage was pulled down considerably by a loss of 19.4 percent in 2009 during the Great Recession.

The governor’s plan to use bonds to shore up KPERS drew the attention last week of the Wall Street Journal, which noted that most states are avoiding pension bonds because of the risks they pose. Such debt offerings can be seen as a “sign of distress,” it said as illustrated by the states of California, New Jersey and Illinois who are among the largest issuers of the bonds and also among the states with the lowest credit ratings.

Kansas’ credit rating has been lowered by two rating agencies within the last year, which may make it necessary to offer a higher interest rate on the pension bonds — and any other state bonds issued for highways or other projects. That problem could be worsened if the sale of pension bonds further erodes confidence in the state’s fiscal stability.

Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College told the Wall Street Journal that pension bonds “can be used beneficially in some situations, but they are often inappropriately used by the desperate and irresponsible.”

Does the state of Kansas fall into one or both of those categories? We certainly hope not, but the plan to use pension bonds is a risky strategy. Rather than placing the state’s finances in additional peril, the governor and state legislators should be looking at more responsible ways to meet the fiscal needs of the state and its retirees.