Re: “Don’t treat state’s pension surplus like a slush fund” (June 11, Opinion):
Thank you for calling out Washington House Democrats’ fiscally irresponsible proposal to use excess pension funds as a onetime stopgap to decrease the budget deficit.
Due to poor planning, the Law Enforcement Officers and Fire Fighters Plan 1 fund is overfunded by nearly $3 billion. Equally poor planning substantially underfunded Teachers’ Retirement System Plan 1 and Public Employees’ Retirement System Plan 1 funds. To decrease that deficit, legislators in 2011 took away from TRS/PERS 1 retirees the yearly cost of living adjustments given retirees in all other state pension plans. Since 2010 these, the state’s oldest pensioners, have been granted only five COLAs.
Washington’s Senate recognized the injustice of depriving one group the inflation protection given members of all other pension plans. Senators passed SSB 5085, merging the three Plan 1 funds, ensuring that police and firefighters continue to receive full pensions and restoring the COLAs unfairly taken away from other Plan 1 retirees. House Democrats refused to vote on the bill and referred it to the Select Committee on Pension Policy.
House members will again have the opportunity to approve the bill in 2026. Let us hope they will accept that pension funds are for pensions not slush funds.
Edith Ruby, Seattle
