Elizabeth Althoff
As the dust begins to settle in Jefferson City, we close the book on another legislative session. Beginning full of optimism, there seemed to be very little standing in the way of a seamless legislative agenda this year. Right off the bat we saw several major landmark bills from Right to Work to Tort and Labor Reform, and then the machine came screeching to a halt. Some say the Governor’s office was bullying legislators, others say it was lack of Senate leadership; some say it was simply in-fighting between party factions. We may never really know. Whatever the source of dysfunction, we saw at times a painfully slow legislative grind. In the final weeks, the bodies slowly moved forward and we did see a few other legislative accomplishments. The legislature passed the budget, fully funded the education formula, passed Real ID, as well as the Blue Alert system.
On the pension side of things, we saw a bit less accomplished. The biggest area of focus for pensions this session was funding. We saw a great deal of discussion in appropriations committee devoted to funding of the State Employees retirement system (MOSERS). The House originally drastically reduced the requested funding, which was eventually resorted in the Senate. Out of 44 Pension Bills that were filled this session, only 2 were Truly Agreed and Finally Passed. The first, Senate Bill 62, was an omnibus pension bill that contained amendments, many of which were designed to address some sort of funding issue. LAGERS was not directly impacted by this bill. Senate Bill 34 was the second pension bill passed, but its language was also contained in the omnibus SB 62. This bill modified language related to felony pension forfeiture.
LAGERS did not sponsor any legislation this session, but was closely watching several bills. LAGERS Public Safety Language was again filed this year to give all employers the option to update the definition of public safety to include EMS and Jailers. Though not initiated by LAGERS, Representative Walker filed the language in HB 865. While there was no opposition, the bill failed to gain traction as focus this session quickly shifted to some of the more pressing funding issues. The language was successfully amended to SB 394 later in session and came very close to the finish line this year. Thank you to those who called in on the bill’s behalf in the final days, and as one of our advocates noted, the capitol was quite busy the last two days as everyone made their final legislative pushes. While the Public Safety language fell short, LAGERS was encouraged at the progress the bill made this session and will be retooling our strategy over the summer.
Another bill that would have impacted LAGERS was HB 933. It would have allowed metropolitan planning organizations to be considered eligible for LAGERS membership (mirroring the regional planning commission language that was passed several years ago). While LAGERS did not sponsor this language, the MPO group did reach out to LAGERS to ensure the language they were seeking met our approval. This bill did not make much noise in its first attempt and will likely reappear next session.
Don’t forget that our Legislative Committee meets every year at our Annual Meeting. This is a great forum for all members of our system to meet with the Board, Legislative Committee, and Staff and participate in an open forum about upcoming legislative issues and agenda of the system. Be sure to look for more information on that in coming months!
Legislative Quick Links:
Sign Up to Receive LAGERS Capitol Report
Visit the Joint Committee on Public Employee Retirement’s Webpage
