I believe it was obvious to those who attended the Senate Ways & Means Committee Hearing Thursday, February 16, 2012 on SB 6563, that the bill was confusing, misunderstood and subject to different interpre­tations. Noticeably absent was an explanation of the legislative intent. This would leave one to believe that the only intent is to transfer the administration of the LEOFF I Retirement System and the 5.5 billion dollar fund over to the LEOFF II Board to use as they deem necessary. This fund could be used essentially to create additional LEOFF II benefits without any increased contributions.

Old policemen and firefighters never die — they just have their pensions raided.

At least that’s how it feels to many members of the Law Enforcement Officers and Firefighters Pension Plan 1 (LEOFF1), which covers close to 8,000 retired and soon-to-be-retired police, sheriff’s deputies and firefighters statewide.

View the full article in the Olympia Report.

This is the time to meet with your legislators and let them know what you think about LEOFF Merger bills HB2350 and SB6563.

LEGISLATIVE TOWN HALL MEETINGS, SATURDAY, FEB. 25:

21st Legislative District
Sen. Paull Shin, Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, Rep. Marko Liias
2/25/12 10:30 a.m.
Mukilteo Library, 4675 Harbor Point Blvd., Mukilteo, WA 98275
&
2/25/12 1:30 p.m.
Edmonds City Council, 121 5th Ave N, Edmonds, WA 98020

The hearing was held on Thursday, February 16th. There was a huge turnout primarily of LEOFF 1 members but with a few LEOFF 2 fire fighters and police in attendance as well. As a humorous side note we observed a number of LEOFF 2 fire fighters signing in under multiple names in favor of the bill. Sort of childish behavior.

You can view the TVW footage of the hearing by clicking the link.The hearing starts about 13 minutes into the video. You can scroll to the start.

We estimate there were over 200 LEOFF 1 members in attendance. The Senators should now know that there is a lot of dissention over this bill and that it should not be passed until its problems can be resolved.

We had a great turnout. There were about 60 people and they all worked very hard. Overall, most reported that they received very positive input from the legislators and aides they spoke with. We need to keep up the pressure but there are a number of signs that we may yet be able to stop this.

If a hearing is scheduled or if we see the need for another legislative day, we hope we get an even bigger response.

Under Senate rules this measure is no longer available for consideration, having fallen victim to an institutional deadline dictating the public process. It never even received a public hearing. Nothing is ever truly dead in Olympia as there are ways to circumvent the process.  While we think it would be unlikely in this shortened legislative session the theat remains. 

It remains important that you continue to press your legislators to oppose this bill and the whle merger concept.  How about getting your neighbors, friends, children and anyone else you can reach to do the same?

 

The Fiscal Note is now out for both HB2350 and SB6563.  Click here to read it.

Nothing in the note is unexpected and there is not much new except the listings of how much more money will be spent on governance.

I will add more once I have a chance to review it completely.  In any case, now is the time to watch the Senate Ways and Means for a hearing. 

It is often difficult to get a busy legislator to read a lengthy document, so here is a short one page list of some the reasons this is a bad bill.  If you use this list, please be sure to study up on the issues so that you can expand on these items or explain them in detail.

See the list.

We are now working the Senate bill SB6563 companion to HB2350. We now need everyone to send email,write call whatever to your senator and house members.
 
Council Firefighters put out an email saying we are threatening legislators and that there is an Atty. General opinion implying support for the bill. Not true.

Also send the message to your email list and ask everyone to contact their Legislator on our behalf. Remember this bill also negatively effects the public budgets as well.

Some important talking points. Use them if you wish but put in your words and send to both your House & Senate legislators. Most important now is the Senate.

1. A legal analysis done by 2 attorneys one being Phil Talmage ex State Supreme Court chief justice points out several legal issues that will have to be litigated if the bills pass.
   
2. Contrary to what the WSCFF has put out the Attorney General's office did not vet this bill and proclaim it legal. The AG stated there could be no analysis absent an actual bill to look at and there was none at the time. See State Actuary web site merger study for the letter.
   
3. Ice Miller,tax attorney firm also points out that no legal analysis was done and only tax issues were reviewed. See Actuary report.
   
4. In the section on Governance section there is no guaranteed equal representation of LEOFF 1 on the new Board.
   
5. Allows a non elected board to determine the employer and state's contribution rate,funding policy and pension benefits with no Legislative oversight.
   
6. Terminate the bills and send all the interested parties to the table in the interim and come up with a bill that works for all and addresses everyone's issues. Don't spend valuable Legislative time and money on a bill that will no doubt be litigated to obtain the same result.

We have both the Fischnaller and Talmage legal analysis available if your Legislator wants a copy.

Ken Crowder

The LEOFF 2 Board spent a whole bunch of the taxpayers' money buying legal opinions from two law firms.  They have chosen to keep them secret and have thus crippled the ability of the stakeholders to evaluate the legal issues properly. They claim that everything is legal and that we should trust them.  We think things are a lot more complicated than that and we don't trust them.  So, here are legal opinions from two Washington law firms -- both have extensive experience with LEOFF law.

Click here for the Phill Talmadge Report.

Click here for the Joe Fischnaller Report.

I cannot emphasize how important it is that you contact your legislatorS by phone, email, letter or even better schedule a meet for coffee.  Please point out that HB 2350 and SB 6563 are bad bills and ask that they oppose these bills.  See other articles on this site for talking points.  PLEASE ACT NOW! 

We were notified late Friday, January 27, 2012 at 4:40 pm that the LEOFF 2 Retirement Board scheduled a special meeting for 9:00 am Monday, January 31, 2012.

Item #1 on the agenda was listed as: Review and Discussion of HB 2350. There was also an announcement of a possible executive session to discuss with legal counsel regarding a possible charge of a legal violation of the Open Meeting Law.

At the regular meeting on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 the board voted not endorse HB 2350, the LEOFF 1/LEOFF 2 Meger Bill. At the special meeting a motion was passed to reconsider the previous board action not to endorse HB 2350. After some discussion a motion was passed by a vote of 6 to 4 to overturn the board's previous action not to endorse HB 2350 and to endorse HB 2350. There was no public hearing and no opportunity for interested parties to comment as the board discussed the reconsideration. It was quite obvious that the Chair had secured two votes to overturn the previous vote and didn't want to cloud the issue.

The two employer representatives and the LEOFF 1 member voted not to endorse. The majority of the LEOFF 2 members, except for one, including Representative Kevin Van De Wege who is also a LEOFF 2 member voted to overturn the board's previous action and endorse HB 2350. The Chair, Kelly Fox, although there was not a tie, voted to endorse the bill.

Monday evening at about 5 PM a new bill, SB6563, was introduced.  It is the same bill as HB2350 but on the Senate side.  The sponsors are Senators Brown, Harper, Hobbs, Murray, Pridemore, and Delvin. It had a first reading on January 31 and was referred to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

The following paragraph is from the WCFF Legislative Update that was circulated on Saturday, January 28th.

"On Wednesday January 25th the LEOFF Plan 2 Board met. Following presentations from LEOFF Plan 2 board staff, Office of the State Actuary (OSA) staff, and public testimony on the HB 2350, a motion to support HB2350 was made and was not successful. On the following day, a board member that was present for the vote voiced concern that the decision was made without full knowledge of important information and asked for an opportunity to reconsider the motion. A special board meeting has been called for on Monday January 30th at 9:00am".

It isn’t often during government hearings that you hear someone actually ask the question, “Why are we doing this, anyway?”

It’s even rarer when the person testifying concedes he isn’t altogether sure.

Recently there has been a circulation of emails supporting HB2350. The items listed appear to be pretty much a repeat of the claims and statements of the LEOFF 2 Board meeting materials and some lobbying talking points from LEOFF 2 organizations. Most of them are just plain wrong or are constructed so as to sound positive but at the same time leave out critical information. Those omissions tend to make the statements untrue. In this article we review the claims being circulated.

Good morning all. Yesterday (Wednesday) I attended the LEOFF Plan 11 Board meeting. We had a large turnout of LEOFF 1 members so thanks for all who attended. I believe they got the message that we care and we're not going to go away.

The LEOFF 2 Board met on January 25th.  A review of HB2350 was presented by Director Steve Nelsen and this was followed by a motion to support HB2350.  After some discussion and comments from each member of the board the vote was taken. 

THE MOTION TO SUPPORT HB2350 WAS SOUNDLY DEFEATED!

We went into the meeting expecting the Board to support this bill and were delighted to hear various Board members speak and show a great deal of reflection on the issue.  Many simply rejected the shallow arguments offered by staff as not adequate to meet the standard they needed to meet their fiduciary duty to the LEOFF 2 officers and fire fighters. 

The LEOFF 2 Board staff created a couple of documents for presentation as meeting materials at the January 25th meeting.  To us they seem like lobbying talking points rather than a careful review of the facts.

We have done a review of the statements in those handouts to present our perspective on the issues.

See the LEOFF 2 Handout  |  See our review
See the Merger Comparison Handout | See our Comparison Handhout

Just follow these links.

• Representative Email list is here: https://dlr.leg.wa.gov/MemberEmail/Default.aspx?Chamber=H
• Senator Email list is here: https://dlr.leg.wa.gov/MemberEmail/Default.aspx?Chamber=S
• Find your district and legislators: http://www.leg.wa.gov/pages/home.aspx

WACOPS has circulated their take on HB 2350.  The problem is they have it wrong.  Either they do understand the bill or are putting out incomplete and misleading information. Whe have published their talking points and our take on them here.

Attorney Joe Fischnaller's analysis of HB2350.  This is a long document, so be sure to look at all the pages. 

Or, you can download a PDF copy here.

Joe developed this analysis at the request of the LEOFF I Coalition.  Many thanks to the Coalition and Joe for providing it for circulation.