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This was a story package designed to inform the public of the pension plan option that their state lawmakers chose for themselves after creating some new retirement savings options that would be less costly and risky for state government and school districts. The historic 2017 pension reform law forces all new school and most state government employees hired in 2019 and after into one of three plans that includes at least an element of a 401(k)-style plan. But lawmakers carved themselves out of that mandate and only made it optional. They had between Jan. 1 and March 31 of 2019 to decide whether to freeze their defined benefit plan and opt into one of the new plans or stick with the old plan. It turns out that all but 20 of the 218 lawmakers who cast a vote on that law decided what was good for the rest of the newcomers to the government workforce wasn’t good enough for them.