Hello everyone,
It’s going to be a short update this week. We have a little over a week to go. While neither the House nor the Senate has yet to work on a Saturday or Sunday recently, they have had several late nights. Both the House and Senate worked until almost 11:00 pm on Friday. Expect more late nights between now and next Wednesday when the General Assembly is required to adjourn sine die.
Last Monday the House Finance Committee referred HB 1029 (the PERA Payback bill) to the House Appropriations Committee on a vote of 9 to 1. The bill, as passed by the Finance Committee, includes $225 million for the cancelled 2020 payment plus $78.6 million for lost earnings that would have accrued on the cancelled payment. We are still fighting a behind the scenes push to allocate monies to future payments rather than to the cancelled 2020 payment. You have been paying your fair share under SB 18-200 and the State should too. The State should not be allowed to ignore its cancelled $225 million payment in 2020. Please ask your representative to support the full $303.6 million transfer to make up for the missed 2020 payment before granting the State any credit towards future PERA transfers.
As of Friday, there have been 651 bills introduced – 414 in the House and 237 in the Senate. Only 10 days until the General Assembly is required to adjourn sine die.
Bill Skewes
Lobbyist
