The Securities and Exchange Commission said the action was its first ever against a state, and only its second against any government over the handling of a public pension fund. The first was the city of San Diego. More may be in store; the agency announced in January that it had a special unit looking into public pension disclosures. The S.E.C. has been trying to assume more authority over municipal securities.

(Webmaster:  This is an interesting and alarming article about New Jersey.  It is worth viewing.  Read the comments section as well.)

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The New York Times has been running a series of article dealing with the financial challenges facing local and state governments. They make for interesting reading as they point out some of dangers facing us. Fortunately, Washington State’s pension system remains in good health.  See the full article for reviews of this series and links to the articles.

Many of you have probably received the latest mailing from the Coalition. I have had a slew of telephone calls and emails expressing disappointment at the lack of information in that document. Specifically people are concerned to see that they spent over $49,000 of your money and provided little other information to provide any understanding of where they are spending the money.

On May 7th Matt Smith, the Washington State Actuary presented a review of the status of the LEOFF 1 Pension Plan at the the Washington State LEOFF 1 Education Association Conference. We were disappointed beause our schedule did not permit us to remain for the last day of this conference and Matt's presentation.  It turns out we did not miss much.

This is a general article about pension funding that was produced by Boston College.  It really does not apply to LEOFF 1, at least not specifically but the article does provide a good deal of in-depth pension funding information for those who are interested in following the issue.

Ron Larsen was unhappy about an article featured in the January RFFOW newsletter.  This prompted him to write to the RFFOW.  They published his letter in the March 2010 issue.

Ron Larsen wrote a letter to the RFFOW.  It was published in their newsletter.  Since I was mentioned in that letter, I was asked to respond.  This article is my response to Ron's letter.

The State Actuary utlizes Mortality Tables for the calculation of the status of the pension funding.  We are reproducing those tables here. 

The projected COLA based on calculations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics index will be 0.44% effective April 1, 2010.  This number is not official until verified by the Plan Administrator (DRS), but we are confident it is accurate.

The amount might be different depending on your actual date of retirement, but the 0.44% applies to almost everyone.  For example, if you retired after April 2, 2009 you will not get a COLA. 

Also, if you are retired under a prior act such as RCW 41.20 and you are entitled to an adjustment based on that system you will not see a change in the net amount you receive.  Your city check will go down a few dollars and the state check will go up the same amount. 

LEOFF 1 (RCW 41.26.240)
Retirement Date	Adjustments
April 2, 2009 - March 30, 2010	0.00%
January 1, 2009 - April 1, 2009	0.44%
April 2, 2008 - December 31, 2008	4.94%
Prior to April 2, 2008	0.44%

In our article "How to Calculate the COLA" we showed each of the steps needed to acquire the information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and to calculate the amount of the COLA.  In this article we complete the calculation for the 2010 adjustment.