HOUSE BILL REPORT

HB 2189

As Passed House:

February 12, 2020

Title: An act relating to including specified competency restoration workers at department of social and health services institutional and residential sites in the public safety employees retirement system.

Brief Description: Including specified competency restoration workers at department of social and health services institutional and residential sites in the public safety employees retirement system.

Sponsors: Representatives Leavitt, Irwin, Sells, MacEwen, Fitzgibbon, Wylie, Corry, Tharinger, Kilduff, Callan, Davis, Robinson, Doglio, Slatter, Ryu, Griffey, Ormsby and Harris.

Brief History:

Committee Activity:

Appropriations: 1/20/20, 1/27/20 [DP].

Floor Activity:

Passed House: 2/12/20, 97-0.

Majority Report: Do pass. Signed by 31 members: Representatives Ormsby, Chair; Robinson, 1st Vice Chair; Bergquist, 2nd Vice Chair; Stokesbary, Ranking Minority Member; Rude, Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Caldier, Chandler, Chopp, Cody, Corry, Dolan, Dye, Fitzgibbon, Hansen, Hoff, Hudgins, Kilduff, Kraft, Macri, Mosbrucker, Pettigrew, Pollet, Ryu, Schmick, Senn, Steele, Sullivan, Sutherland, Tarleton, Tharinger and Ybarra.

Staff: David Pringle (786-7310).

Background:

The Public Safety Employees' Retirement System (PSERS) was created in 2004 and opened to members on July 1, 2006. The PSERS provides retirement benefits for state and local government employees who work in positions with law enforcement duties but are not eligible for membership in the Law Enforcement Officers' and Fire Fighters' Retirement System. Members of the PSERS with at least 20 years of service will be eligible for full retirement benefits from age 60, five years earlier than the regular retirement age in Public Employees' Retirement System Plans 2 and 3. Members of the PSERS with 20 years of service may also opt for early retirement beginning at age 53 with a 3 percent reduction in benefits per year of early retirement.

Membership in the PSERS is restricted by an individual's employer and by specific job criteria. The PSERS employers are defined as the Department of Corrections, the Department of Natural Resources, the State Parks and Recreation Commission, the Gambling Commission, the Washington State Patrol, the Liquor Control Board, county corrections departments, and the corrections departments of municipalities not classified as first class cities.

In 2018 the PSERS was amended to add the Department of Social and Health Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs to the list of employers and to expand the types of employees working for eligible employers that are eligible for the PSERS to employees whose primary responsibility is to provide nursing care or to ensure the custody or safety of offender and patient populations.

Summary of Bill:

The type of institution or residential site at which a PSERS employer's employees are eligible for participation in the PSERS is expanded to include institutions or residential sites that perform competency restoration services.

Appropriation: None.

Fiscal Note: Available.

Effective Date: The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of the session in which the bill is passed.

Staff Summary of Public Testimony:

(In support) In 2018 the Legislature included nursing staff at the State Hospitals in the PSERS.  More recently, in response to the Trueblood case, the Competency Restoration Program and facilities were created.  Inadvertently, by the way that the Competency Restoration Program was created, the Department of Social and Health Services removed some workers from the PSERS that were intended to be covered in 2018.  Please pass this bill to cover these mental health workers as originally intended.

(Opposed) None.

Persons Testifying: Lindsey Grad, Service Employees International Union Healthcare 1199 Northwest.

Persons Signed In To Testify But Not Testifying: None.