Posted on March 16, 2012 by Doug
The first week of special session is just about concluded with a smattering of political theater and a new Senate budget. This budget was again introduced by Senate republicans joined by 3 democrats. The education cuts have disappeared but there are a couple of pension issues that continue in this budget: reducing early retirement benefits for employees hired after June 30, 2012, and a one year delay in the $143 million unfunded liability payment for PERS/TRS 1.
There is a continued funding for 6442 but they also added $780,000 funding for “10 charter schools” (Governor Gregoire has threatened a veto if the charter school provision gets to her desk). We take some comfort from the fact that she didn’t threaten to veto 6442 if it makes it to her desk.
Posted on April 18, 2011 by Doug Nelson
With a strong 34-13 bi-partisan vote today, the Senate approved its version of the Budget completing the first stage of the Budget approval process. And it doesn’t seem to matter where you look, it isn’t good news. So what’s next? The Governor, House and Senate negotiators will go behind closed doors and hammer out a final Budget. Since there are only 6 days left of the regular session, there isn’t enough time to complete these negotiations and a special session is expected to be announced on Thursday.
Back to the budgets. These are the areas of the Budget that are of greatest concern:
Higher Education
- Budget cuts are deeper in the Senate Budget but tuition is allowed to go higher (up to 16% per year) to accommodate the cuts. This results in a 5.1 % cut that amounts to $32.4 million less than the House and Governor. There is also continuing debate about allowing universities greater ability to set their own tuition as long as certain conditions are met; for instance, to provide additional low income assistance and in-state students enrollments are not unnecessarily limited.
- 3% pay cuts for all staff are implemented in all Budgets. In some cases, the universities will not be able to implement these cuts because they have contracts already in place. Where these cuts will be made is an open question but will most likely end in tuition going up to make up for the loss in funding, certain positions eliminated, or some combination of them.
- In all 3 Budgets, the state limits its contribution to the higher education retirement plans (formerly known as TIAA – CREF) for certain employees to 6% (this is a 4% reduction). Universities will have to either ask employees to make up the difference, absorb the additional cost, or increase tuition to make up the loss in funding.
K 12 Education
- Pay cuts for classified employees are now on the table. In both the Governor and House Budgets, classified employee salaries escaped the Budget ax. With the Senate’s Budget, state funding for classified, certificated, and administrative salaries will be cut 3%. However, in a welcome gesture to classified employees, employees who make less than $30,000 per year are exempt from this cut and a $10 million mitigation pool is set up to help these employees.
- In all 3 Budgets, insurance funding is not increased during the next two school years (we currently receive $768 per month per FTE). That means we will have to pay for any increases in premium for the next two school years. Since classified employees will be hurt the most by this lack of funding, PSE has been willing to look other places to find quality, affordable health insurance.
- Under the Senate Budget, 16,000 K 12 employees will be offered the opportunity to join a new health insurance plan in the 2012-13 school year. A plan that will treat all K 12 employees the same with the same plans, rules, costs, and eligibility requirements. Employees who join this plan will qualify for an additional $82 per month for their insurance (and there is a likelihood they, or their school district, will not have to pay the retiree-carveout, currently $67 per month).
- On this same subject, the House Budget proposes that a workgroup be formed to study how a new K 12 consolidated health insurance plan could be implemented in the 2012-13 school year.
- Finally, all 3 Budgets eliminate the PERS/TRS 1 uniform COLA. This saves the State $360 million in the Budget, but more important, it reduces the PERS/TRS 1 unfunded liability from $7 billion, no that is not a typo, to $3 billion.
Posted by: Doug Nelson on 4/18/2011 at 5:22:00 PM
Posted on March 18, 2010 by By Rick Chisa
Gov. Gregoire signed HB 1541 into law today, restoring partial service pension credit to a handful of school employees, including South Kitsap secretary Carey Ensign (above, second from right). Ensign has been pushing to correct an oversight in pension benefits since the late 1980′s.
Congratulations to Carey for her perseverance!
Posted by: Rick Chisa on 3/18/2010 at 5:00:00 PM
Posted on February 3, 2010 by Doug Nelson
One of PSE’s issues this legislative session is to provide SERS 3 and PERS 3 members the ability to change their plan 3 contribution rate on an annual basis (just like the teachers can). Currently, PERS 3 and SERS 3 members cannot change their contribution rate as long as they continue working for their employer.
This morning, in a meeting requested by PSE, and invited guests from the WEA and the Teamsters, DRS (Department of Retirement Systems) Director Steve Hill, agreed to re-submit the PERS 3 and SERS 3 plans to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). However, in recognition that the TRS 3 annual option is on thin ice (meaning it is very likely the IRS is going to reject their continued ability to annually change their contribution rates), the parties agreed that if the IRS approved the TRS 3 plan, the DRS will immediately re-submit the SERS 3 and PERS 3 plans to the IRS asking for a quick decision on these plan.
When will we get a decision from the IRS? According to the DRS, it could be sometime in 2010, or maybe 2011, or maybe…(let’s hope it doesn’t go any further out than that). Note: the IRS has been known to drag its feet on these type of issues in the past.
It is important to note that the DRS director and staff are very supportive of giving PERS 3 and SERS 3 members what we want. It is just hard for them to push too hard knowing that we are skating on thin ice.
In another positive sign of their support, DRS agreed to provide us necessary information should the IRS disapprove the TRS 3 annual contribution rate. The information will be critical to our strategic efforts to change the federal rules that cause the IRS to reject TRS 3 as well as PERS and SERS 3.
A letter to those members who responded to our call to inform the DRS Director of your interests and concerns will be coming from the DRS soon.
Thanks to all those who participated in this effort.
Posted by: Doug Nelson on 2/3/2010 at 9:23:00 PM
Posted on January 22, 2010 by Rick Chisa
PSE has launched an exciting email campaign to call on our state legislators to support giving classified employees the ability to change their voluntary pension contributions every year.
This is important for two major reasons:
1. Employees who have had their work hours reduced or are really straining to make ends meet could reduce their contributions and increase their take-home pay.
2. Employees nearing retirement could increase their contribution to increase their pension benefit.
This change would apply to 59,000 PERS and SERS 3 members. Teachers enrolled in TRS 3 already have this benefit.
Click here to Speak Out today!
Posted by: Rick Chisa on 1/22/2010 at 4:25:00 PM
