The longest legislative session in the history of the Oregon Legislature, proved to be a disappointing and troubling one for the Oregon State Fire Fighters Council.  Without question, the major revisions to the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) dominated much of the work done by the legislature.  By now, most everyone knows that a majority of these changes are being challenged in the courts and we are very blessed to have long time OSFFC legal counsel, Greg Hartman on the record as the lead attorney challenging the reductions to our pension benefits.

While PERS dominated the overall session along with the battle to balance the budget, significant steps were made in attempting to dismantle the draconian changes established to our collective bargaining bills established in 1995 under a Republican controlled majority in both the House and Senate.  Although we were not successful in realizing any changes to our collective bargaining rights, huge progress was made in promoting our agenda.  All three of our collective bargaining bills passed the Senate with bipartisan support – the first pro labor collective bargaining bills to pass one chamber in recent memory.  The fact remains of the thousands of bills discussed during the 2003 legislative session, our collective bargaining bills were still in play to become law in the waning hours of the session.  As an example, the Rules Committee is the very last committee to close before the legislature adjourns or Sine Die’s, and our collective bargaining bills were one of only two bills that had a chance to move out of this committee in the final hours of the session – despite an onslaught of lobbyists from the League of Oregon Cities, Oregon Fire Chief’s Association, Oregon Fire District Directors Association, and many others, trying to have these bills killed throughout the session.

I think it is important to recognize that while we nearly passed our collective bargaining bills, because of the efforts of the OSFFC lobbying team and grass roots efforts by our members, many potentially lethal pieces of legislation (including bad collective bargaining bills) were defeated.  Further, along with our partners in the PERS Coalition, we were able to get a solid pension plan established for our newest members.

Finally, below is a list of bills that we refer to as “counters”.  That is, each one of these bills was a top priority of the OSFFC and directly impacted our members and their families.  As a “counter” each legislator and the leaders of the minority and majority parties know that these pieces of legislation will be counted in our legislative voting record.

While there were literally hundreds of bills tracked by the OSFFC and many of them important – the following bills were significant.  Below is a brief summary of the major pieces of legislation considered “counters” by the OSFFC, followed by a chart of how legislators voted. 

SB 444

OSFFC Position:  Support

This bill modifies criteria used by arbitrators in public collective bargaining.  Under current law, “the interest and welfare of the public” is given the highest priority for the arbitrator to consider when determining what Last Final Best Offer to accept in their award.  In short, this piece of legislation would have basically returned the criteria utilized by arbitrators prior to the passage of SB 750 including: the lawful authority of the employer, the stipulations of the parties, the interest and welfare of the public and the reasonable financial ability of the unit of government of meet the cost of the proposed contract, comparison of the wages, hours and conditions of employment, and finally, defining that jurisdictions of more than 325,000 population for comparison purposes, means comparing to cities on the west coast of the United States.

Status:  Died in House Rules Committee on last day of 2003 Legislative Session.

SB 445

OSFFC Position: Support

This bill modifies the definition of supervisory employee for purposes of public employee collective bargaining.  The intent behind this bill was to simply keep certain fire fighters and police officers, and other public safety officers from being defined as supervisory while performing their primary duties.

Status:  Died in House Rules Committee on last day of 2003 Legislative Session.

SB 446

OSFFC Position:  Support

This bill modifies the definition of employment relation to include certain staffing levels and safety issues for certain employees who are prohibited from striking.  In simpler terms, this bill would once again give us the ability to discuss safety issues as a mandatory subject of bargaining.

Status:  Died in House Rules Committee on last day of 2003 Legislative Session.

HB 2003

OSFFC Position:  Oppose

Arguably this is one of the most complex and controversial pieces of legislation passed in recent history of the legislature.  In previous communications I have referred to this as the PERS omnibus bill and many portions of this bill have been challenged in court.  Below is a description of the major elements of this bill:

Effective January 1, 2004, members may not contribute or transfer funds to the Variable Annuity Account. Those accounts will continue to gain or lose interest earnings as they have previously. Effective January 1, 2004, the six percent employee contribution (whether made by the employee or "picked up" by the employer) may not be made into the member's PERS account. Instead, effective January 1, 2004, active members must make payments equaling six percent of salary to a "transition account" outside of PERS. Any employer may agree to pay this amount on behalf of the employee, and employers who currently "pick up" employee contributions must continue to make these payments to the transition account until December 31, 2005.The amount in a member's transition account will be distributed to the member in a single lump sum within 90 days of retirement, refund or loss of membership.

Earnings Credited to Tier One Regular Accounts [Section 5]

No earnings may be credited to Tier One regular accounts in any year in which there is a deficit, and no earnings may be credited that would result in a deficit. This provision becomes effective with the crediting of earnings in calendar year 2003, but does not affect members who retire before April 1, 2004.

Minimum Account Balance [Section 8]

The regular account of a Tier One member who retires on or after April 1, 2004 may be no less at the time of retirement than what it would have been if it had been credited with the assumed rate every year it existed.

Cost-of-Living Adjustment to Retirement Allowances [Section 9-10]

For Tier One members who retire with an effective date on or after April 1, 2000 and before April 1, 2004, and receive a service retirement allowance under Money Match, PERS will perform the following two calculations: The "fixed service retirement allowance," which is the benefit amount the member is actually receiving on July 1, 2003.The "revised service retirement allowance," which is calculated with the member's account balance adjusted as though 11.33 percent was credited for 1999 (instead of 20 percent), and includes an imputed annual cost-of-living adjustment. Members will receive the fixed allowance (with no additional COLA) until the revised allowance (with COLA) provides a higher benefit.

Employer Contribution Rates [Section 15]

The PERS Board must recalculate the contribution rates of all participating employers to reflect the provisions of HB 2003 and issue the new rates to employers by October 1, 2003. The new rates are effective July 1, 2003.

Status:  Signed in to law by the Governor.

HB 2020 A Engrossed

OSFFC Position:  Oppose

The first version of HB 2020 pushed by Representative Dennis Richardson (Eagle Point –R) and others, was purely a 401K plan with no provisions for a disability pension, and other components essential to fire fighters and their families.  The main provisions of this plan were:  employer contributes a base of 3% for every employee plus 1 1/3% from employer and 2 1/3% from the employee.  In addition, employee may borrow up to 50% for purchase of home, and retirement date is subject IRS rules.  Further, this bill would have required that the PERS Board “contract with a private sector firm for the record-keeping and customer service functions of the plan.  Finally, this bill would permit future legislators to tinker with a members pension benefit with very little protection.  For example, future contribution reductions could have been enacted by the legislature under this plan.

As one can see, this particular pension plan is less than adequate.  However, having said this, the fact remains that this particular plan passed the House, and if it wasn’t for the Senate rebuking this plan and completely amending this plan, it is possible that this would be the pension plan available to our member who were hired after August 29, 2004 with no previous PERS eligibility.

Status:            Amended in the Senate, and replaced with Oregon Public Service Retirement Plan (OPSRP), and signed in to law by the Governor.

HB 2237 B Engrossed

OSFFC Position:  Support

Limits authority of Board on, and Department of, Public Safety Standards and Training to disclose photograph of public safety officer. Requires public safety agency to provide department with access to employee records under specified circumstances. Provides that department has jurisdiction over public safety officer for certain purposes after certification has lapsed or been suspended or surrendered.  Along with these provisions, under the direction of Senator John Minnis and Senator Tony Corcoran, the Chair and Vice Chair of the Senate General Government Committee, SB 445 and 446 were placed in to these bills as amendments.

Status:  Passed out of Committee, but failed on Senate floor on a vote of 15-15.