The Washington Council of Fire Fighter, WACOPS and the FOP are preparing for another attempt to raid the LEOFF 1 pension fund.

Gov. Gregoire has issued her proposed Supplemental Budget for 2012. Among the suggestions is the following which has sent the Council of Fire Fighters, WACOPS and the FOP ballistic.

"Align LEOFF Plan 2 contributions with other state pension plans - $18.1 million."

Reduces state, local government and employee contribution rates to the LEOFF Plan 2 pension system to align with the method used by other state pension plans. LEOFF covers local law enforcement officers and firefighters, and is funded by a combination of contributions in which the members pay 50 percent of the total contributions, the employers pay 30 percent and the state pays 20 percent.

See the budget proposal…  The proposal above in on page 33.

Why is this important? 

Remember HB 2068 from the last session? That bill would have saved the state $15 million in pension contributions and the LEOFF 2 system overall would have seen a $75 million reduction.  The response proposed by the Council of Fire Fighters was HB 2097, the LEOFF 1 & 2 Merger proposal.  The $18.1 million in proposed savings will lower the overall pension contributions by $90 million. 

Essentially this means the Council of Fire Fighters, WACOPS and the FOP will again propose a merger to block the pension premium reduction.  In fact they already have.  On October 31st they wrote to the Governor again proposing  a merger.  (View the letter.)  Of course they did not bother to seek out the LEOFF 1 view of the proposal although I suspect they did not expect much in the way of a favorable response from LEOFF 1.  Still, if they would keep the attack on our pension system out of play we would most likely be willing to work with them to find a solution to their problem.

How bad is it?

Well, the LEOFF 2 pension system is 124% funded.  It is one of the best funded public pension systems in the entire country.  If this proposal passes it will remain one of the healthiest pension systems in the country.  So, although you will hear the Council of Fire Fighters cry that the sky is falling it is really not that bad. 

It is still bad for LEOFF 2 even if it is not the end of the world.  They want their system to be overfunded both for long term security and in order to support the enhancement of benefits.  Any reduction in pension contributions makes the ability to seek enhanced benefits more difficult.  Of course the benefit enhancement issue is the bottom line and it is the principal reason they want to merger LEOFF 1 and LEOFF 2 – because when they merge them the LEOFF 1 funds become available for the enhancement of LEOFF 2 benefits.  Or at least they think so.

Of course we believe such a use of LEOFF 1 funds in illegal and any attempt to seize them will be reversed in court.  The law seems pretty clear on this and it is supported by the Ice Miller opinion provided by the State Actuary as a part of the Merger Study. 

Unfortunately the only thing the Council of Fire Fighters, et al seem to be able to do is to scream that their pension is being raided and the propose to raid LEOFF 1 as a remedy. 

The bottom line.

• The merger issue is not dead.
• We will need to continue our efforts to keep the issue from rising from the dead.

Keep your pencils sharp and be prepared to write letters and make phone calls to your legislators.  Stay tuned to LEOFF1.Net – we will keep you up to date with all developments.