Action Alert: Ask Your Senator to SUPPORT SB 6
April 4, 2022Action Alert: Ask the House Retirement Committee to SUPPORT SB 6
April 13, 2022I am thrilled to report Senate Bill 6 by Senator Ed Price passed the Senate unanimously on Wednesday, April 6. This is spectacular news! We have officially hit the halfway mark on our “Road to a COLA.” Let’s continue on the path to success. SB 6, which will provide a two percent COLA to TRSL retirees at least age 60 and retired at least one year, now heads to the House Retirement Committee. We will send another “Action Alert” when it is time to start contacting committee members. In the meantime, you can start preparing Golden Letters to send to the committee. Here’s a list of the members of the House Retirement Committee. If you need assistance with writing your letters or need another Golden Letter Template, visit our dedicated “Road to a COLA” webpage for additional resources: https://lrta.net/roadtoacola/.
Thank you all, again, for your activism this session. Our efforts have been successful, and YOU have been a huge part of the successes.
Additionally, the House Retirement Committee met on April 7. House Concurrent Resolution 11 by Rep. Mike Johnson and House Bill 32 by Rep. Phillip Tarver were on the agenda. HCR 11 memorializes Congress to repeal the Government Pension Offset (GPO)/Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). As a reminder, the GPO and WEP unfairly penalize Louisiana’s retired teachers by reducing or eliminating their spousal Social Security benefit or their own Social Security benefit. You can learn more about the GPO and WEP here. The committee moved to report the resolution favorably to the House.
HB 32 is a companion bill for House Bill 31 also by Rep. Tarver (Proposed constitutional amendment that would dedicate a certain amount of state nonrecurring revenue (surplus) to state retirement systems for supplemental benefit payments for eligible retirees). HB 32 requires the Public Retirement Systems’ Actuarial Committee (PRSAC) to certify and report to the legislature the number of persons in each state system who would be eligible for the supplemental benefit (should HB 31 pass) after the committee adopts the official valuations for the state public retirement systems. The committee also moved to report the bill favorably to the House. LRTA SUPPORTS HCR 11 and HB 31 and 32.
The deadline for legislators to file bills for the 2022 Regular Session was Tuesday, April 5. There were four additional bills filed regarding return to work. Those bills are:
- House Bill 1021 by Rep. Jack McFarland – provides for the reemployment of retirees of the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana in a critical shortage position. (Click here for the bill digest)
- Senate Bill 419 by Senator Stewart Cathey – provides relative to the reemployment of certain retirees. (Click here for the bill digest)
- Senate Bill 425 by Senator Rick Ward – provides for reemployment of retirees to address certain critical teacher shortages. (Click here for the bill digest)
- Senate Bill 434 by Senator Cleo Fields – provides relative to the reemployment of retirees to meet critical shortage needs. (Click here for the bill digest)
For a current list of bills LRTA is tracking with the anticipated positions LRTA will take, please visit https://lrta.net/bills/. The LRTA Legislative Committee and Executive Board will officially vote on the positions in the coming weeks.
Stay tuned for our next legislative update!
Regards,
Rodney R. Watson
LRTA Executive Director