Report #3 3/13/97

Governor Locke’s newly released budget for 1997-99 calls for a 2.5% salary increase effective 9/1/97 and an additional 2.5% increase effective 9/1/98. Health insurance benefits allocations are increased by $11.05 for a per month total of $325.56 for the 1997-98 school year. The 1998-99 proposed increase is $17.59 per month, totaling $343.15. It is doubtful that the Republican controlled legislature will propose anything higher than the governor has asked for. In fact, it is likely that they will seek cuts. School employees should call the hotline at 1-800-562-6000 and ask their legislators to support the governor’s budget.

Our efforts to raise bid limits (SB 5530) died in committee. Look for a detailed obituary in the next paper.

The plan to create yet another retirement system similar to the PERS III’s we’ve rejected the last three years was voted out of the House Appropriations Committee and is now eligible to be scheduled for a floor vote. As reported in our last report, the Washington Educational Employees Retirement System (WEERS) Plan would lump all classified school district employees in with the Teachers Retirement System.

While not going into all the history, you should remember that Plan III basically cuts your pension into two halves. One a defined benefit similar to the current Plan II and the other a defined contribution which you may invest. It does nothing to lower the retirement age of 65. Current employees had the option to transfer and at first were given a 10% bonus which supposedly kept the state from making money on the new plan. The 10% turned to 20%. It’s now 40%! Do you get the feeling something is not quite right?

We’ve opposed the plan for our classified school employees for the same reasons we opposed it for the rest of our members:

• Doesn’t lower the retirement age.
• Mandatory enrollment for new hires.
• Change in vesting rules - 5 years to 10 years.
• Plan II would never gain improvements.

The only two employee groups not opposing this are the teacher’s Washington Education Association (WEA) and the Public School Employees (PSE). The teachers already bought into the new plan and can’t get out now. Their only hope is to bring others into the system. What’s really unfortunate is that the people that would lose the most under WEERS III are classified school employees.

What We’re Doing

The first thing we need to do is kill House Bill 2017 and Senate Bill 5929. That’s going to take your phone calls. Even if you’re not a school employee, these bills will effect our efforts to fix PERS II. Tell your lawmakers to vote no! The reasons are highlighted above. Call the hotline at 1-800-562-6000.

The Public Employees Pension Coalition (PEPC) is working on legislation to create a joint legislative task force that will empower the beneficiaries (that’s you) of the retirement system. We need to create a new plan that allows employees more options and is more responsive to what the members want, not just the legislators. More later.

The last report said that Senate Bill 5677 was good and that House Bill 1079 was bad, right? So if I told you now that Senate Bill 5677 needs major fixing and that House Bill 1079 was everything we wanted and a bag of chips you’d think your lobbyist was confused wouldn’t you? Well here’s what happened.

Senator Deccio (R) Yakima had accepted the anti-displacement and employment standards amendments offered by Senator Wojahn (D) Tacoma. The amendments survived 2 other committees and were placed on the floor for final passage. However, once on the floor it was stripped of the protections we needed, all of them. The Republican Senate leadership is either looking to distance their bill from Locke’s, so they can gain negotiating room (as they’re telling us) or they really don’t believe or care if we’d be harmed by the bill in its current form. Time will tell.

In the House, Representative Cooke (R) Kent, withdrew the protections we needed and Representative Gombosky’s (D) Spokane, amendment was voted down so what was going to the floor offered us no protections. Your lobbyist continued to work on the House version. After meeting with key Republicans in leadership and their staff, an agreement was reached which protected our interest. Representative Dave Mastin (R) Walla Walla deserves a lot of credit here. The reason is simple, he gave us the time to explain our issue and then helped us get the amendment through. Why? Because even though he doesn’t have the best of labor voting records, he recognized that this was the right thing to do.

In the meantime Governor Locke released his own Welfare Reform Bills. We’ve met with him and his staff and his bills provide the needed protections, but need fine tuning. The Governor’s bill is HB 2231 in the House and SB 6040 in the Senate.

The negotiations between the House, Senate and Governor will now begin. In order to become law the bill must pass both houses and be signed by the governor. If the Senate and the House can’t agree the bill goes to a conference committee. If nothing gets passed, former Governor Lowry’s plan stays in effect.

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