FINAL BILL REPORT

HB 2189

C 108 L 20

Synopsis as Enacted

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.

House Committee on Appropriations

Senate Committee on Ways & Means

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:

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.

Votes on Final Passage: