While Gov. Malloy and I don't always see eye to eye, his deal with the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition incorporates many of the essential components that I advocated, including replacing the unsustainable rising balloon payments with more stable and predictable annual contributions, drastically reducing payment volatility and adopting a more conservative long-term rate of return assumption. Gov. Malloy should be commended for taking another step forward in solving our pension crisis. His administration, to its credit, has made the full recommended annual pension payments. Changes that they previously negotiated to new employee benefits will help drive down future costs.