The new newsletter from LGC came in and reported some success on the two bills facing the Senate this week. HB653 and HB876 passed with amendments. HB 876 deals with a study commission bill while HB 653 deals with the issue of funding methodology which places investments into the pension fund until it is at 85% instead of siphoning monies into a special account. It also places a local government management rep onto the Board of Trustees ( this is an important step ) and provided a one-time 2.5% cola for retirees.
Thanks goes out to Senator Letourneau and his colleagues for the unanimous vote and for listening to concerns from everyone.
As is stated in the newsletter, these are not easy issues to deal with and everyone knows that we all must work together to fix these issues.
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2 comments:
Brian,
It's a shame there is not more interest or dialog on this subject...clearly, the most informed people understand that retirement, healtcare and educational funding are - by far - the areas with the greatest tax impact.
With retirement and healthcare funding (the great hidden taxes) increasing at significant rates and with consideration to the tax cap - perhaps services will be squeezed to a point where the greater public will start paying attention.
anonymous 5:07,
You are so right! When town side budgets are 80% personnel driven and costs such as health care, retirement and COLAs increase yearly percentage wise more than our tax cap rises yearly ( about 3% yr avg ) Then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that eventually something will have to give. The key will be everyone working together to find solutions otherwise we will have less services but higher taxes.
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