We are in our second year of continuing our monthly meetings throughout the summer period.  The results have been especially gratifying.  Many of our “snow-birds” attended these meeting last year and are back again this year.  It has been great to see these faces at the meetings. 

I am still convinced that the ongoing viability of this Association is dependent upon binging in new members as they retire.  We are troubled by the inability to reach the recent LEOFF 2 retirees.  Currently we are working to develop an information package to be included with other information given to folks when they file for retirement.  Hopefully, that will help.

We need a LEOFF 2 member on our Board.  If you are a LEOFF 2 member and interested in serving on the RSPOA board, please call me at 206.418.6331 or send me an email at gtaylor@rspoa.org.  We need your help!

Coalition

Recently the Coalition issued their Annual Report.  We were disappointed in that report for several reasons.  First, it was not well written and hard to understand.  Worse yet, it had little information.  Did you notice they left out their financial information?  There was no mention of how they are spending the money you donated.  They spend about $30,000 of it a year.

That report was issued without the approval of the Coalition board.  In fact, the president, Bob Monize, refused to provide even a pre-publication review.  Also, the listing of Coalition board members was structured in such a way as to exclude the RSPOA board members past or present.   Since RSPOA members are the major contributors to the Coalition, we found this omission to be particularly offensive.

We think this situation with the annual report is reflective of some ongoing internal strife within the Coalition.  Over two and a half years ago, Ed Caalim, as president of the RSPOA and a Coalition board member detailed in a letter to Bob Monize five priority areas of the RSPOA.  Since that time we have worked hard, but with little success, to move the Coalition to act on these items.  We intend to continue to push the Coalition to deal with these items and to honor the commitment they made when the first sought your financial support.

On a positive note, Joe Fischnaller has recently filed a lawsuit in Moses Lake to compel that city to pay the medical benefits approved by the disability board.  It is very similar to the Snohomish County lawsuit and an important area for all LEOFF 1 members.  The Coalition provided the seed funding for the lawsuit.

Medical Benefits

While Seattle does not have a problem, many small employers are very concerned about LEOFF 1 medical costs.  Now they have to show their liability for future medical payments in their financial statements.  They are concerned that this will affect their bond ratings.

A committee was set up by the Department of Retirement Systems to reviewing this problem and suggests solutions that will aid the cities, counties and fire districts in meeting their obligations.  Of course, we are concerned that they will want to utilize the LEOFF 1 Pension Trust surplus for this purpose – they have tried to do so in the past.  I serve on this committee on behalf of the RSPOA.  John Nordlund is our alternate. 

The committee will complete its work in two phases.  The first phase is simply to identify all the facts about the issue and get an agreement from all stakeholders as to these facts.  The second phase will be to develop suggestions to the legislature to provide some mitigation or relief to the impacted local jurisdictions.

We have had three fact-finding meeting and a fourth will be held on July 30th.  A fact book is being developed.   We will provide you with a copy of that as soon as it is complete.  In the meantime, feel free to contact me directly for details.

All this fuss started when the State Actuary announced there was a $1.7 billion medical benefits liability.  One of the results of the fact-finding is a suspicion that the Actuary failed to include Medicare and other insurance revenues as an offset to the liability.  That issue is being investigated.  If it corrected, the whole problem may go away as Medicare will pick up almost 80% of the liability.

Come to our meetings.  We will have more detailed information available there.  Also, check out the website at http://rspoa.homestead.com/.  We will be updating this information on the web site.