LEOFF 1 Advisory Group Interim Study

The LEOFF 1 Advisory group established last year by the Legislature was charged with gathering information to analyze impacts of the State Actuary defined $1.745 billion medical and long-term-care cost liability to local governments.

The group met several times during the interim and developed a "fact report" of the issues to educate legislators and others. A brief outline of the report and the on-going efforts of this group will be presented by the Director of the Department of Retirement Systems to the Select Committee on Pension Policy on December 16 at 10:00 am. It is the intent of this group to meet again next interim in an effort to identify means of assisting local governments address this liability.

Medicare Benefits

HB 2510, passed last session, allows law enforcement officers, firefighters, and certain other public employees to obtain Medicare coverage through a "divided referendum" process.

In the past, certain groups of public employees were able to vote on whether or not to participate in Social Security and Medicare. Those votes were "majority rule" votes – if the majority of employees in the coverage group voted to participate, then all employees were covered, and if the majority opted out, none of the employees would be covered.

This new legislation allows those who were not covered to vote again and opt to participate in Medicare even if the majority chooses not to participate.

The Employment Security Department is in the final stages of developing the process to implement the provisions of HB 2510. AWC and others have reviewed and commented on the draft implementation documents and will keep you posted on further developments.

2009 Legislative Priorities for Personnel and Labor Relations

Other priority issues:

LEOFF 1 Medical Retiree Study by DRS: AWC will continue to work with the Department of Retirement Systems, retirees and others on the educational effort concerning the LEOFF 1 retiree medical and long-term-care costs. We will follow up the current study outlining the problem with a 2009 interim effort to identify recommendations for solutions for cities and other local governments, to the $1.745 billion state-wide liability.

Issues to endorse:

Random Drug Testing for Police Officers: AWC will endorse legislation allowing cities to conduct random drug testing for individual police departments.

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