LRTA Legislative Update #2: The Legislature Completes Its First Week. Start Writing Your Golden Letters!

The Louisiana legislature has completed the first week of the 2022 Regular Session. Legislators convened at noon on Monday, March 14.

LRTA continues to monitor for any additional bills that could affect retirement benefits and/or the retirement system. Here is the current list of bills LRTA is tracking with the anticipated positions LRTA will take. The LRTA Legislative Committee and Executive Board will officially vote on the positions in the coming weeks.

We anticipate that Senate Bill 6 by Senator Ed Price could be heard as early as March 28! Recall, SB 6 would provide a two percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to eligible TRSL retirees. Retirees must be retired at least one year and age 60.

Now is the time to prepare letters of support to send to the Senate Retirement Committee. If you have attended your Spring District Meeting, you heard about our Golden Letter writing activity. Mailing our “golden letters” will send a strong, unified voice to legislators to support a COLA for Louisiana’s retired teachers, the first since 2016. Click here to download our Golden Letter template to write your letter on. You may use regular notebook or copy paper if you prefer.

In addition, you can download a Word Document sample letter here or a PDF sample letter here to use as a guide as you write your letter. To find the contact information for the Senate Retirement Committee, click here. Although hand-written letters are very effective, you may type your letters on a Word Document if you prefer.

We encourage members to start writing and mailing letters now in anticipation of the meeting and to accommodate for any delays with the mail. LRTA will send an “Action Alert” with our VoterVoice tool closer to the date of the Senate Retirement Committee meeting.

We are excited to begin advocacy activities for the first COLA for retired teachers since 2016. Make sure to check our “Road to a COLA” webpage on the LRTA website for updates and additional resources at https://lrta.net/roadtoacola/.

Stay tuned for our next legislative update!

Regards,
Rodney R. Watson
LRTA Executive Director