{"id":27257,"date":"2011-03-15T16:39:24","date_gmt":"2011-03-15T22:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=27257"},"modified":"2011-03-16T09:07:05","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T15:07:05","slug":"house-oks-bill-changing-retirement-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/03\/house-oks-bill-changing-retirement-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"House OKs bill changing retirement plans"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Peter St. Cyr)<\/p><\/div>\n

(Full disclosure: My wife is an ERB member, and I authored a column earlier this week opposing this bill<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

The House approved today a bill that would change retirement plans for future public employees and current workers with less than five years of service \u2013 though it would exclude law enforcement officers from the changes.<\/p>\n

House Bill 644<\/a>, sponsored by Rep. Mimi Stewart<\/a>, D-Albuquerque, passed the House on a vote of 37-32. It now heads to the Senate for consideration.<\/p>\n

This is the second time the House considered the bill, which it rejected on a vote of 38-28<\/a> on Sunday. Since then, apparently, a number of members changed their minds.<\/p>\n

The bill would set at 55 the minimum age that PERA and ERB members can begin drawing retirement. It would reduce the annual cost of living adjustment for PERA workers. And it would require many current employees in both retirement systems \u2013 those with less than five years of service as of July 1 \u2013 to work more years before they retire than they would have had to work under the retirement plan in place when they were hired.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is the only way\u2019<\/h3>\n

The changes, if they become law, would affect some 17,000 current ERB employees, Stewart said today. She said she didn\u2019t know how many current PERA members they would affect.<\/p>\n

Stewart argued that changing retirement plans for future employees isn\u2019t enough to shore up the funds, so making changes to the plans of some current employees is critical.<\/p>\n

She said the New Mexico Constitution allows the state to make changes to the plans of those she called \u201cnon-vested members\u201d \u2013 those who haven\u2019t worked five years and aren\u2019t fully vested in their retirement plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the only way for us to get enough funding into these retirement funds so that they last for people who want a retirement fund,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018There are other ways\u2019<\/h3>\n

Majority Leader Ken Martinez<\/a>, D-Grants, disagreed<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other ways to shore up this plan,\u201d he said, and though he didn\u2019t go into specifics, he said improving the financial stability of the plans should not come \u201ccompletely on the employees\u2019 backs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several others agreed, saying changing the plans of current employees was breaking a promise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that this is a bait and switch on current employees,\u201d said Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton<\/a>, D-Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

But Rep. Conrad James<\/a>, R-Albuquerque, called the proposal \u201cmodest\u201d and necessary. Rep. Dennis Kintigh<\/a>, R-Roswell, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of these difficult, demanding decisions that will make some people unhappy, but that we must do for the good of this state,\u201d Kintigh said. \u201cIf we fail to act, these retirement funds are in serious danger.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House approved a bill that would change retirement plans for future public employees and current workers with less than five years of service \u2013 though it would exclude law enforcement officers from the changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[118,107],"class_list":["post-27257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-economy","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}