Gary Fox has submitted an excellent letter that he has sent to legislaror.  Read it carefully there are some interesting things in it.  Click here for a copy.

We are now working the Senate bill SB6563 companion to HB2350. We now need everyone to send email,write call whatever to your senator and house members.
 
Council Firefighters put out an email saying we are threatening legislators and that there is an Atty. General opinion implying support for the bill. Not true.

Also send the message to your email list and ask everyone to contact their Legislator on our behalf. Remember this bill also negatively effects the public budgets as well.

Some important talking points. Use them if you wish but put in your words and send to both your House & Senate legislators. Most important now is the Senate.

1. A legal analysis done by 2 attorneys one being Phil Talmage ex State Supreme Court chief justice points out several legal issues that will have to be litigated if the bills pass.
   
2. Contrary to what the WSCFF has put out the Attorney General's office did not vet this bill and proclaim it legal. The AG stated there could be no analysis absent an actual bill to look at and there was none at the time. See State Actuary web site merger study for the letter.
   
3. Ice Miller,tax attorney firm also points out that no legal analysis was done and only tax issues were reviewed. See Actuary report.
   
4. In the section on Governance section there is no guaranteed equal representation of LEOFF 1 on the new Board.
   
5. Allows a non elected board to determine the employer and state's contribution rate,funding policy and pension benefits with no Legislative oversight.
   
6. Terminate the bills and send all the interested parties to the table in the interim and come up with a bill that works for all and addresses everyone's issues. Don't spend valuable Legislative time and money on a bill that will no doubt be litigated to obtain the same result.

We have both the Fischnaller and Talmage legal analysis available if your Legislator wants a copy.

Ken Crowder

Click for a letter sent to sponsors of SB6563.

Click for letter to Senator Smith from Dave Stanford.

The following paragraph is from the WCFF Legislative Update that was circulated on Saturday, January 28th.

"On Wednesday January 25th the LEOFF Plan 2 Board met. Following presentations from LEOFF Plan 2 board staff, Office of the State Actuary (OSA) staff, and public testimony on the HB 2350, a motion to support HB2350 was made and was not successful. On the following day, a board member that was present for the vote voiced concern that the decision was made without full knowledge of important information and asked for an opportunity to reconsider the motion. A special board meeting has been called for on Monday January 30th at 9:00am".

It isn’t often during government hearings that you hear someone actually ask the question, “Why are we doing this, anyway?”

It’s even rarer when the person testifying concedes he isn’t altogether sure.

Ted Fehr wrote to Senator Cantwell about the Windfall Elimination Provision. The windfall elimination provision reduces the Social Security benefits of workers who also receive pension benefits from other employment not covered by Social Security, such as the Federal Civil Retirement System. Public employees often have salaries that are lower than those in the private sector, and the windfall reduction makes it more difficult to recruit employees into these positions.

Also please see our article from 2009.  The letters are pretty much the same.  Just updated a bit