THERE STILL may be time to pass the Rule-of-90 pension benefit this session, but your help is needed.

“We are hoping that during the 60-day session — scheduled to end around March 10 — there still is time for legislative leadership to act on the Rule-of-90 proposal,” says Council 2 Deputy Director Pat Thompson.

The Rule of 90 is beneficial not only because of what it says, but also because it is easy to understand. The measure (HB 2679/SB 6445) would allow anyone whose age plus years of service total 90 to retire with unreduced benefits.

The Select Committee on Pension Policy already has recommended the bill to the full legislature. That committee is a 19-member board made up of legislators, department heads, and representatives of employers and employees.

By mid-February we had not received any commitments to deal with the measure, Thompson says. But there is still time, even though the session is short, he adds.

“We need your help, too,” Thompson says. “Please contact your legislators and ask them to support the bill. Also contact the offices of Gov. Christine Gregoire, House Speaker Frank Chopp and Senator Majority Leader Lisa Brown. The number of the Legislative Hotline is 1-800-562-6000. (For a list of telephone numbers and email addresses, click here.)

“Feel free to include a personal message about the hardship created for employees as well as employers under the current age 65 minimum under pers ii. Working to 65 and beyond 30 years is simply not realistic in many public occupations.”

In a related area, the chances look good that the State Legislature will come up with funding for PERS I before the end of the session.

The funding is required to make up for the failure to pay amounts owing on the fund over the past four years. When the plan was ended in 1977 it left a large debt.

The Legislature decided to pay back the debt over 50 years in what could be seen as a 50-year mortgage. This debt is referred to as the Plan I unfunded liability.

But for the last four years the payments on the “mortgage” have not been made and the debt has become even greater as a result.
This year it seems as though the Legislature might accept a proposal to resume the funding for the pension system. The main argument centers on how much of the budget surplus should be devoted to the fund.

The governor has made a proposal in this regard — and the House and Senate are actually talking about increasing the amount.

“We are glad they are taking this action, but it is a self-inflicted wound,” Thompson says.

“After all, if you skip four years of paying your mortgage, the bank will be pleased you have started paying it again, but you wouldn’t be congratulated.”

Inevitably there is a price to pay, Thompson adds.

The longer the Legislature waits to tackle the problem, the farther behind it falls and the worse the problem becomes, Thompson says.

The pension funds also have been unable to benefit over the last four years from the concept of gain-sharing, the name given to the plan that if the State’s investments exceeded a return of more than 10 percent a year four years in a row, the State would split half of everything over that figure with the employees and add it to their pension funds.

The idea looked good when it was approved in 1998 as a lure to move people into PERS III. But, since the market crash in 2000 and 2001, such four-year-long gains have not materialized and the state needs to set aside almost $200 million a year so the money is available when it is needed.

No effective efforts were made to tackle the thorny issue last year.

Council 2 has opposed efforts to repeal gain sharing without an adequate trade-off.

“We have worked with the Select Committee on Pension Policy for more than a year to find a compromise, but we have yet to hear anything positive from the governor’s office or House and Senate leadership,” Thompson says.

He asked Council 2 members to contact their legislators as well as the offices of Gregoire, Chopp and Brown and tell them they oppose the repeal of gain-sharing and want the issue dealt with this session.