LEGISLATIVE ALERT

Date: 1/19/06


The LEOFF 1 Coalition has grave concerns about recent Legislative Bills. HB1873 and HB2688 and companion SB5901 and SB2688 Bills, all were supposed to be about removing the “Cap” on the ability to let the remaining LEOFF 1 workers continue to work after achieving the max of 30 years with 60% cap, and still earn service credits of 2% per year. This sounds honorable on the face. However, these Bills are sort of like a juicy cookie. The outside tastes good , the inside is flavored with yet another bitter taste of a raid on all LEOFF 1 people in that our benefits would suffer.

The stuff that was hung on the Bills include the results that would give away control and use of the pension “excess funds”,  (a new version of the word “surplus”). The Bills also would have the perceived effect of replacing the plan1 local disability boards. The earlier legislative effort also wants you to consent to these ideas by encouraging you to have one retiree and one active duty person serve on a committee with five state or other employer groups to come up with a way to solve the employers need for funds to pay their medical liabilities. The Bills also restart the active duty employees and the employer contributions of 6%.

You already have in statute the benefits of disability boards and the employers are already on the hook for your medical needs. First Class Cities already had a prior act pension system. Their plan 1 people feel secure on the issue. The Bill language raises a concern for that security. Also in the Bills is a provision for restart of the pension contributions by 2007, something that would perhaps cause many earlier retirements than previously would be contemplated.

What may have propelled the problem for us is the size of the surplus. The Legislature would like you accept these funds to be considered “excess” for easier swallowing. The size of surplus may be huge again. Facing the fund are several spousal laws that passed. Today’s No Cap Bills would also impact the fund, but we believe the health of our pension fund would still be good, if we do not consent to the raid, and if all four Bills fail, and no one writes an “emergency” appropriating emergency Bill that quickly grabs the greenback dollars.

Therefore, the LEOFF 1 Coalition Board met today and unanimously voted on the issue .
We are notifying the various Legislative Committees and a few key people as follows;

“If the Legislature wants to draft a Bill to remove the cap on the remaining
LEOFF 1 people, we would support it. Adding anything else would be
unacceptable and we will not consent to changes to the LEOFF 1 law. Therefore,
the LEOFF 1 Coalition, a group of approx. 3500 retired,active,disabled, and
Survivors, are opposed to these Bills”. We c/c to the IRS, who are thought to
require stakeholder input and agreement with a pension fund use, not for
only the pensioners. These Bills benefit the employers.

This Legislative Alert notice is to encourage you to write letters to the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives, and the Senate Ways and Means Committee, as well as your own legislators as to your position on these Bills. Phone calls are very good, not quite as good as hand written letters in a ladies’ hand. To make matters worse, HB2688 has a scheduled hearing next wed the 25th of Jan, 2006 , “subject to change”. We will have a Coalition member there, maybe some of you too.

We have little time to object. Multiple Bills are in play, and the session is a short one that usually deals with ….M.O.N.E.Y. repairs of previous Legislative issues. You have money, what would you expect to hear?

We can not write, publish, sort, and mail an Annual Report by snail mail in time to affect the problem above and other news. The Report will get out, but we must rely on electronic mail and your good nature to share with your LEOFF 1 associates, coffee groups, organized retiree groups, lunch groups.

Passage of any of these Bills will trigger a response very quickly for us to go into a very major new fund raising mode for an effort to react the only way we have left. We have indeed retained as much a defense fund as possible to begin do what is reasonable and required. Experience has demonstrated that strategic planning and cash can be crucial to keeping our LEOFF 1 law and fund safe. This can be serious business. Be aware.

Look for yourself on the State legislative site:

www.leg.wa.gov/wsladm/default.htm
The site will pop up and first show you what is happening that day. Look down to an open window and type in what bill number you want to see, and hit enter. Find the word original bill and click it. What is lined out is what change is proposed.

Robert Monize, President
Email:BOBBYMONIZE@highstream.net


The LEOFF I Coalition and its web designer assume no responsibility for the correctness of the information supplied herein or for opinions expressed. Material subject to editing. No portion of this site may be reproduced without written permission from the LEOFF I Coalition president, Bob Monize.