Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently appointed Josh McGee, a paid employee of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, to the State Pension Review Board of Texas.  The Arnold Foundation is one of the lead dogs in the hunt to abolish first responder pensions and line-of-duty death benefits for widows and children of fallen firefighters and police officers.  Billionaire John Arnold made millions during the Enron scandal.  Josh McGee has devoted his career to "reforming" what we work so very hard to preserve, a decent retirement after a career of giving to the communities in which we serve.  Please stop what you're doing and contact Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office and urge him to rescind the appointment of Josh McGee and replace him with someone capable of preserving something that first-responders have worked so hard to get.

More about Josh McGee below.  See bottom of article for link to contact Gov. Abbott.

Josh B. McGee, Ph.D.

VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

Josh is an economist and public policy expert. Prior to joining the Foundation, he was a doctoral fellow and research associate in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. He currently serves as an adjunct faculty member at Rice University, where he teaches in the Summer Institute for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program at the Jones Graduate School of Business.

In addition to his experiences in academia, Josh brings multi-dimensional entrepreneurial and business skills to the Foundation, having spent some of his early career as a charter school administrator and engineering consultant. Josh has produced high-quality, policy-relevant research spanning a number of important areas, including public pension cost and labor market effects and K-12 education policy. His work has appeared in scholarly journals such as Education Finance and Policy and Education Next. He has presented his work at several major academic conferences such as the meetings of the American Economic Association, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, the Association for Education Finance and Policy, and the American Statistical Association.

Josh has also worked actively to shape public policy. While at the University of Arkansas, he provided expert testimony and policy advice in several states on the topics of K-12 education policy and public pension reform. During his tenure with the Foundation, Josh has focused primarily on addressing the public pension crisis by educating the public and policymakers throughout the country about the nature and size of the problem as well as potential structural reforms that would create a pension system that is comprehensive, sustainable, and fair. Josh holds a B.S. and M.S. in industrial engineering and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Arkansas.

Contact Governor Abbott at the following link:

https://gov.texas.gov/contact/