In the 2005 -2006 Session of the Washington State Legislature HB 2688 (SB 6447) passed. On March 30, 2006 Governor Gregoire signed the bill with a partial veto.  The bill that lifted the 60% cap imposed on those members who joined the system after February 18, 1974.
The section the Governor vetoed dealt with the Medical Benefits issue.  The bill would have created a Task Force to study the funding of post-retirement medical benefits for LEOFF 1 members. Of particular concern to LEOFF 1 members was a sentence in the Senate Bill report which read, “After evaluating options, the task force shall select private or public funding vehicles through
which voluntary employer contributions and transfers of excess pension funds may be used
for funding LEOFF 1 medical benefits.”

The Governor, in her veto message, assigned DRS the task of establishing the groundwork for a study of the medical benefits issue and subsequently tasked DRS with forming the study group.

In the last legislative session allocated $40,000 to DRS for the conduct of the study.  The group has had four meetings.  The last meeting was held on July 30th and the next is tentatively scheduled for August 7th.

Membership in this group has a bit of flux from meeting to meeting, but it is comprised of a significant number of LEOFF 1 members.  The following individuals attended the June 12th meeting:

WACOPS	LEOFF 1 Coalition	RFFOW		WSCFF
Ken Crowder	Mark Curtis	Randy Plain		Keven Rojecki
	Dan Downs	Dick Warbrouck
Retired Seattle Police Association (RSPOA)	FOP
Gerald Taylor	Bill Hanson
Attorney	Assoc. of Counties		Assoc. of Cities	Leoff 1 Retiree
Joe Fischnaller	Julie Murrays		Jim Justin	Bill Kantor

 
The group has agreed to refrain from wide distribution of the meeting information until such time as the group has agreed on the minutes.  Hence, while we have had four meetings, only two of the minutes are available as of the time of this writing.  The minutes of the thrid meeting should be posted soon. 

You can read them online:
http://www.drs.wa.gov/Administration/LEOFF1MedicalBenefits/meetingminutesdefault.htm.