Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Pensions Group2 topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee votes to retain bill addressing Group 2 retirement change; stakeholders ask to await governor's budget
Summary
The committee voted to retain House Bill 727, which updates prior Group 2 pension changes; union leaders and stakeholders urged retention pending the governor's budget, and the retirement system provided preliminary fiscal guidance showing a potential positive actuarial effect if certain state contributions are included.
Representative Steve Pearson asked the committee to retain House Bill 727 so the issue could be examined through the budget process rather than immediately advancing committee action. The motion to retain carried on a roll call and the committee will leave the measure in committee for consideration in the budget process.
Pearson said HB 727 is similar to House Bill 4 36 from two years earlier, which had previously passed the House and been removed in the Senate. He said stakeholders had negotiated concessions and that the newly filed draft reflects stakeholder adjustments. "As far as the committee's questions go, we can I'm certainly happy to talk about any historical... the purpose of this is to address changes that were made retroactively to the Group 2 pension system in 2011," Pearson said.
Multiple union leaders and public-safety groups — including the Professional Firefighters of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Troopers Association and the New Hampshire Police Association — testified in support of restoring benefits for the middle tier. They asked the committee to retain the bill because the governor indicated retirement changes would be addressed in the budget. "Reinstating these benefits for our members has been and will continue to be a priority of our organization," John McAllister of the Professional Firefighters said.
Mark Kavanaugh of the New Hampshire Retirement System said the system had not completed a final fiscal note for the very recently amended language but provided preliminary actuarial guidance: the draft as circulating would have a modest positive effect on system finances if the legislature funds a series of state payments (the draft included a $27.5 million per-year payment assumption). Kavanaugh said in the absence of those state payments employer rates would rise and the system's unfunded liability would increase.
Given those fiscal and policy considerations and the governor's stated interest in addressing Group 2 in the budget, Representative Pearson moved to retain the bill. Representative Schmidt seconded the motion; the clerk took a roll call and the committee voted to retain HB 727. Committee leaders said retaining the bill allows the legislature to consider the governor's budget and reconcile any budget-level funding with statutory language before final committee action.
