Senate Retirement Committee ranks 10 retirement bills for actuarial study, places post‑retirement COLA bill first

The Senate Retirement Committee voted to prioritize ten retirement-related bills for actuarial study and placed Senate Bill 339, a proposal to provide semiannual post‑retirement benefit adjustments, at the top of its list.

The prioritization matters because actuarial studies determine the fiscal impact and cost estimates the state uses when considering benefit changes. Committee members said they wanted to avoid duplicate studies and spare taxpayers from paying two separate actuarial analyses on closely related measures.

Committee Chair (title given in the transcript as “Mister chairman”) opened the meeting by noting the committee had “passed out about 10 bills to get actuarial studies,” and said members wanted to “prioritize 1 to 10 our bills” so the House and Senate would not both pay for the same analysis. Senator McLaren then proposed that Senate Bill 339 be listed first; the committee approved that placement unanimously by voice/show of hands. "That's unanimous, thank you, good move," the chair said after the vote.

The committee discussed and assigned ranking positions to the bills that had previously been released for study. Members repeatedly said the goal was to narrow the set of bills…