THE 2006 Legislative Session began on Monday, January 9. This is scheduled to be a 60-day session that should wrap up on time on March 9.

Short sessions are designed to deal with the supplemental budget. The main budget was passed last session and is a two-year budget.

Typically, this means lawmakers only "tweak" their original spending plan and try to get out of town early to prepare for their fall elections. Naturally, the timelines for getting bills drafted and voted out of committee are shortened so things move quickly or not at all.

YOU CAN hardly read a newspaper or magazine these days without hearing about pension problems.

Public and private plans are struggling due to chronic under funding during the boom years of the 1990s. While the newspaper reports here in Washington State overplayed our pension woes, there is a shortfall that was created when the State siphoned money away from the Retirement System and spent it on the General Fund.

This shortfall will not affect your pension benefit. Your current benefits are guaranteed by the State. It does, however make improvements to the system much more difficult to achieve. The following bills are some of the recommendations from the Select Committee on Pension Policy.

HB 2679/SB 6445 -- Rule of 90: Provides unreduced retirement benefits to any vested member of the TRS, SERS, and PERS Plans 2/3 for whom the sum of the number of years of the member’s age and the number of years of the member’s service credit equals ninety or more.    

HB 2683/SB 6451 -- Plan 1 Unfunded Liability: Establishes a three-year phase-in for contribution rates for the Plan 1 Unfunded Actuarial Accrued Liability (Plan 1UAAL) in PERS and TRS.    

HB 2690/SB 6457 -- Purchasing Additional Service Credit: Authorizes retirement system members in all plans to purchase up to five years of “air time” at full actuarial cost in order to obtain an additional annuity.    

HB 2687 -- $1,000 Minimum Benefit: Establishes a $1,000 minimum benefit in the Plans 1 of PERS and TRS for those with at least 20 years of service and who have been retired at least 25 years; provides a 3 percent escalator for both $1,000 minimum benefits (the other being the $1,000 minimum benefit already available to those with 25 years of service and who have been retired 20 years).    

HB 2681/SB 6452 -- Contribution Rate Floors: Beginning July 1, 2009, establishes minimum employer contribution rates for the Plan 1 UAAL in PERS and TRS, as well as minimum employer and member contribution rates for the Plans 2/3 normal cost in PERS, TRS, and SERS.   

HB 2684/SB 6450 -- Plan 3 Vesting: Establishes five-year vesting for the Plans 3 of PERS, SERS and TRS.   

HB 2686/SB 6454 -- Age 66 COLA: Amends the Uniform COLA eligibility requirements of the PERS and TRS Plans 1 to include all retirees who have been retired one year and will have attained age 66 by December 31 (instead of July 1) of the calendar year in which the increase is given.

Please contact your legislators and ask them to support these bills. More details on these and other bills will be included in future reports.

Legislative Hotline 1-800-562-6000