|
NEWS
RELEASE
March 30, 2007
Contact:
Luis Moscoso, Government Relations Director
(360)
943-1121, ext. 119
State Employees Say NO to the Repeal of Gain-Sharing
OLYMPIA: The Washington Public Employees
Association (WPEA), other State employee unions, and
legislators themselves report a heavy and steady flow of
protests from state employees and retirees objecting to the
elimination of gain-sharing. All three state budgets,
Governor, Senate and House are determined to eliminate
potential gain-sharing investments from the Public
Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) Plan 3 employees to fund
current pension deficits that should have been addressed
years ago.
The idea of gain-sharing, originally proposed
and passed by a bipartisan legislature, is now the scapegoat
for years of under funding our state pension systems!
Gain-sharing payments and properly funded retirement systems
should not be an option to be offered and withdrawn in a
vain attempt to redress budget deficits too long ignored. We
couldn’t manage our personal budgets this way, why should
the State? It’s like putting off paying the full amount of
a monthly bill and then expecting the creditor to forgive
what’s still owed.
This is not a case of state employees or
retirees asking for more just because there is a budget
surplus. How can there be a “true” budget surplus when the
under funded pension accounts have been left to languish all
these years? There never was a surplus. The so-called budget
surplus is really a stratagem being employed to rectify
bipartisan avoidance of this long-standing pension problem.
There is no ‘silver lining’ in the trade-offs
being proposed to state employees for the elimination of
gain-sharing. PERS Plan 3 employees should not be left out
in the storm because the pension umbrella they were provided
is leaking through no fault of their own. Forcing PERS Plan
3 members to give up gain-sharing with minimal or inadequate
financial mitigation is like asking them to endure the
soaking and eventual shrinkage of their retirement nest egg
so other pension plans can finally be funded.
WPEA has proposed several possible alternatives
that we believe may lead to a more equitable solution for
PERS Plan 3 members and the State. It is too soon to just
give up on the problem and ask employees who were enticed,
or in some cases “forced” into Plan 3, to just give up the
incentive they were “offered” for joining in the first
place.
WPEA’s mission is to empower Washington public
employees through education, representation, member support,
a quality work environment and a quality standard of living.
They set the highest ethical standards to guide employees in
working for the citizens of Washington State.
# # #
|
Return to Pension Update