FINAL BILL REPORT
SSB 6106
C 359 L 24
Synopsis as Enacted
Brief Description: Including in the public safety employees' retirement system specified workers at department of social and health services institutional and residential sites that serve civilly committed residents or serve patients under not guilty by reason of insanity findings.
Sponsors: Senate Committee on Ways & Means (originally sponsored by Senators Conway, Keiser, Robinson, Hunt, Dhingra, Frame, Holy, Kuderer, Lovick, Nobles, Valdez and Wilson, C.; by request of Department of Social and Health Services).
Senate Committee on Ways & Means
House Committee on Appropriations
Background:

The Public Safety Employees' Retirement System (PSERS) was established July 1, 2006. Certain full-time state and local government job classes that were covered by the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) that had been identified as having law enforcement responsibilities and powers were moved to PSERS. PSERS has a normal retirement age of 60 with ten years of service as compared to the PERS 2 plan with a normal retirement age of 65.


Membership in PSERS is limited by employer and specific job criteria. 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 and?Cannabis Board, Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, the Department of Veterans Affairs, county corrections departments, and the corrections departments of municipalities not classified as first class cities.

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The specific job classes covered by PSERS include city corrections officers; jailers; police?support officers; custody officers and bailiffs; county corrections officers; probation officers?and probation counselors; state correctional officers; correctional sergeants and community corrections officers; liquor enforcement officers; park rangers; commercial vehicle?enforcement officers; gambling special agents; and certain employees whose primary responsibility is to provide nursing care or to ensure the custody or safety of offender and patient populations.
Summary:

PSERS membership is expanded to include employees of DSHS that work at institutions or residential sites that serve civilly committed residents, or serve patients under not guilty by reason of insanity findings.?

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Members of the PERS Plan 2 or Plan 3 made newly eligible for PSERS, may choose to remain in PERS or transfer to PSERS for periods of future service. The choice to transfer to PSERS must be made during an election period between June 1, 2025, and September 1, 2025. Members of PERS that do not affirmatively choose to transfer to PSERS will remain in PERS.?
Votes on Final Passage:
Final Passage Votes
Senate 48 0
House 93 0
Effective:

June 1, 2025