BY RICHARD WARBROUCK, PRESIDENT, RFFOW

In response to Ron Larsen’s letter I will first provide you with a little background information.
In April 2000 SB 6792 had been discussed and agreed to by both the House and Senate however the bill had not been passed by the Legislature. The plan now was to incorporate the bill into the budget. The result would be as follows:

• Transfer 50 million dollars of the LEOFF 1 Fund into a medical fund to pay the medical expenses for long-term care in nursing homes and for medical expenses in excess of $25,000 in a twelve month period for extraordinary care. This would relieve the employers of this responsibility but would only be authorized when the fund value was in excess of 500 million.
• A committee would be established to monitor the impact to the fund over the next twelve months and the contributions paid to the fund would be discontinued for both the employee and the employer.
• In June of 2000 a decision was made to put this issue on hold and to direct the State Actuary to perform a study of this issue and forward a report to the 2001 Legislature. On July 19, 2000 the then Joint Committee on Pension Policy met at Highline Community College to evaluate and discuss SB 6792. Senator Fraser, Committee Chair, scheduled a round table discussion and invited me as the President of the Retired Firefighters of Washington to participate in the discussion. In addition to the amendment addressed in SB 6792, the discussions included:
• Creating a Long Term Risk Pool (LTC)
• Transfer some or all of the expected LEOFF 1 medical cost annually as allowed by the IRS
• Disperse money to local government for cost and to partially fund the long-term risk pool
• Consider disability board options
• Eliminate the creation of new boards
• New long-term care board to act as an appeals board for medical appeals
• Allow boards to disband and default to county boards
• Allow county boards to disband and default to the LTC boards
• Develop regional boards for non-first class cities and counties

Limited space will not allow for the whole history of this issue but I can assure you that there was by now a lot of concern, discussion and phone calls between law enforcement officers and firefighter groups and Letters and Responses phone calls from individual members. Various groups began to meet to develop a plan to defeat any legislation that would take or transfer any LEOFF 1 funds. We now had an issue that was easily understood and one that we could all agree on. This was the first time since 1969 when we all worked and lobbied to pass the LEOFF 1 Retirement Act. We quickly decided to do three things, educate our members, coordinate our efforts and share the cost for legal advice and other legal expenses in the event of a lawsuit. We would develop a Coalition of all law enforcement and firefighter groups. Each group would pay an initiation fee and would appoint two delegates to serve on the Coalition Board. These two delegates most often would have been elected by the members of their group as officers or directors and then appointed as delegates. We would then solicit the members of each group for donations. We realized that there were a lot of individual police officers and firefighters who were not affiliated with any group or organization who would perhaps be willing to make a donation so we decided to advertise the Coalition and conduct one or two general informational meetings.

Unfortunately, no one who had been elected as an officer or a director of another organization would serve as the chair of the Coalition. As a result I made the motion to appoint Mark Curtis as Chair, a nice guy who had little experience with pension legislation, lobbying, Roberts Rules of Order or conducting a meeting. To show how desperate we were, we elected an individual as treasurer who was not an active or retired police officer or firefighter but who worked for a small police organization, only because he lived near the newly elected chairman. Needless to say, the Coalition began to fail shortly after it was formed. Major groups of law enforcement officers and firefighters began to drop out. Just recently the last major group, after months of confrontation, dropped out. After several years Mark Curtis decided not to continue as Chair. The Coalition had to advertise for a chairman. A former Snohomish County deputy sheriff who had resigned and vested ten years earlier, volunteered and was appointed Chair, with Mark Curtis continuing as lobbyist. They have a board who has appointed one another and no oversight from a membership. They don’t have a membership, only some names and addresses of those who have made a contribution in the past. There is no membership to hold them accountable, approve expenditures or minutes of meetings, to pass motions or give directions to the directors. They spend a lot of money on an annual newsletter that says nothing. They continually seek donations, even though they have adequate funds, using a fear tactic that the legislature is about to take our pension money when in fact there has not been another attempt to transfer pension funds since 2000. Believe me, with the down turn in the economy the loss of investment earnings and the reduced LEOFF 1 fund value, the legislature is now very pleased that they didn’t succeed in 2000.

We have been successful in getting several LEOFF 1 bills passed by the legislature since 2000 and I don’t believe the Coalition has ever testified in favor of or against a single bill. When the initiative was passed creating the LEOFF 11 Pension Board I tried to get LEOFF 1 included under the jurisdiction of the LEOFF 11 Board but was told by the WSCFF that the Coalition was not in agreement and that the Coalition could create bad publicity. The so-called (unknown) Coalition members could not be polled nor could an election be held for the Coalition to make a decision on an issue as important as this.

The Coalition’s Mission Statement lists as it’s main objective “to protect the integrity of the LEOFF 1 system.” I know they would object if anyone tried to take as much as $1.00 from the LEOFF 1 fund, but they never said a word in regard to the Contribution Holiday and the loss of a minimum of sixty million dollars in contributions to the fund.

I am sympathetic to Ron’s desire to have a real statewide Coalition of all the 7000 retired law enforcement officers and firefighters, with every member having a vote, but unfortunately that is not possible. In the real world, we have five or six major organizations with officers and directors elected by the membership. The membership of these organizations are educated and informed at meetings, by newsletters, and other communications, and can hold their elected representatives accountable and establish goals, objectives and priorities for the group. If the elected officers are not performing as expected, the membership has the ability to recall or to remove them from office at the next election. These procedures do not exist in the Coalition. Each of these organizations are independent, even as members of a Coalition, they would have what is referred to as Home Rule or local autonomy.

In real life any retired member or group can have a legislator, if interested, introduce a bill that would impact all the members of the LEOFF 1 system. As that bill proceeds through the legislative process the loudest voice will be heard and the legislature will act accordingly. When a lawsuit is filed by an organization, each group has the opportunity to share in the cost of the lawsuit or to file an Amicus Brief in support of the plaintiff or the defendant. Always remember that a decision by a Judge affects all of us. When LEOFF 1 bills are introduced, they are posted and referred to a committee.

At that time any group or individual that monitors pension legislation is notified and can do what is in their best interest. The Retired Firefighters of Washington monitors the legislature very closely and we are in Olympia one or two days a week. We report on all legislation in our monthly Newsletter and place such issues on the agendas for discussion at our Director’s and membership meetings. I often receive calls regarding pension legislation from members, non-members, and from other organizations with questions regarding legislation. In the absence of a real statewide Coalition we do have an alliance of several police and fire groups that meet or confer by phone on a regular basis.

In answer to Ron’s question, be assured that if there was a major challenge to our retirement system by the legislature or in the courts, we would all band together as we did before to protect and defend our retirement system.