Monday, March 17th marked a day of celebration not only for the Irish, but everyone supporting SHB 1204 (Pension Governance). After spending day and night Thursday, Friday and Saturday fighting an intense battle with those opposing our reform efforts, the bill was brought to the floor with no real certainty about its passage. It was the last bill heard before the House broke for dinner.

Representative Bill Fromhold (D – Vancouver), prime sponsor of the bill, was first to speak in support of the bill, also speaking in support was Representative Jerome Delvin (R – Richland). Representative Barry Sehlin (R -- Oak Harbor) then spoke in opposition. Representative Sehlin is the ranking republican on the powerful Appropriations Committee, so the longer he spoke the more worried we became that republican support would fade. After Sehlin, came Representative Steve Conway (D – Tacoma) who followed up with an excellent response. The debate was then closed and the vote was called. House members vote electronically with the total displayed on an overhead score board, green for “yes” red for “no”. Your lobbyist was standing in the infamous cold, leaky tent watching the action on a fuzzy TV. The first few votes cast indicated a tie, but thankfully the “yes” votes came on strong and the bill passed by a whopping 74 to 24 margin!

Here’s How Your Representation Voted:

Yeas:

Representatives Ahern, Alexander, Anderson, Armstrong, Benson, Berkey, Blake, Boldt, Bush, Cairnes, Campbell, Carrell, Chase, Clements, Cody, Condotta, Conway, Cooper, Cox, Crouse, Darneille, DeBolt, Delvin, Dunshee, Edwards, Flannigan, Fromhold, Gombosky, Grant, Haigh, Hankins, Hatfield, Hudgins, Hunter, Jarrett, Kagi, Kenney, Kessler, Kirby, Lantz, Lovick, Mastin, McCoy, McDermott, McDonald, McIntire, Miloscia, Morrell, Morris, Murray, O’Brien, Orcutt, Pettigrew, Pflug, Priest, Quall, Roach, Rockefeller, Santos, Schindler, Schoesler, Schual-Berke, Shabro, Simpson, Skinner, Sommers, Sullivan, Talcott, Upthegrove, Veloria, Wallace, Wood, Woods, and Speaker Chopp

Our efforts to crack down on initiative signature fraud took a big step forward when the House passed ESHB 1660. This bill requires ballot measure signature gatherers to swear that, to the best of their knowledge, every person who signed the petition did so without compensation, and provided the correct information.

This bill also requires ballot measure signature gatherers to acknowledge the criminal penalties for forging signatures and offering payment for signatures.

Please contact Senator Pam Roach via the Legislative Hotline (1-800-562-6000) or e-mail (roach_pa@leg.wa.gov) and ask her to hear ESHB 1660 in her committee (Government Operations and Elections).

Although these bills may be resurrected as part of the “end game” budget, most early retirement bills appear dead for the session, with two exceptions, HB 2180 and HB 1458. Since HB 1458 only applies to employees facing layoffs, we are supporting the broader HB 2180. Here’s what the bill does: An enhanced benefit retirement window is created for PERS members retiring between September 1, 2003 and February 29, 2004.

Members of the PERS Plan 1 may retire during the window, elect to withdraw all or part of their employee contributions in a lump sum, and receive a monthly benefit reduced by the amount of an annuity that the withdrawn contributions would have purchased.

Members of the PERS Plans 2 and 3 may retire during the window at age 60 or older and with five or more years of service and receive a benefit reduced by 3 percent per year between age at retirement and 65.

Members of PERS retiring during the window also receive an additional $10 per month per year of service (for example, an additional $250 per month for a member with 25 years of service) for the first 24 months of the person’s retirement.

The bill is expected to cost $35 million this biennium, but we counter that with the savings generated by reducing the overall work force.

The budget picture keeps getting worse. The $2.4 billion hole has grown to $2.6 with some estimates reaching $3! Our effort to provide local governments with more revenue options will be featured in our next report.