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LEOFF2 board orders final actuarial briefing on adding standby pay to basic salary
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Summary
Board staff reported gaps in employer data about standby-on-call pay and actuaries provided only a range estimate; the board voted to request a final actuarial pricing briefing in December to get a full estimate before considering changing LEOFF2's definition of basic salary.
Board staff presented follow-up work on standby pay at the Nov. 19 meeting, explaining the question before the board: whether standby pay (on-call or standby duty payments) should count as basic salary for LEOFF2 retirement calculations.
Jacob White told the board that the initial actuary pricing offered a range of potential plan impacts between 0 and 4 basis points due to limited data, and that he had continued public-records requests to expand the data set. "When I gathered new data, I tied it to the time frame of the previous data...but the actuaries have not been able to do a data pricing," White said, noting King County responses revealed additional forms of on-call pay that earlier requests did not capture.
Board members debated equity and employer impacts. Some members argued the change would align LEOFF2 with PERS and PSERS and treat on-call labor uniformly: "Pay is pay," said one member during the discussion. Other members cautioned that labor contracts vary across employers and that the additional costs would be passed to employers.
Representative Bergquist moved that the board receive a final briefing in December with actuarial pricing. The board voted in favor of scheduling the final briefing; no policy change was adopted on Nov. 19. Staff said they will continue to gather data and direct the actuary to provide a refined cost estimate for the board's December meeting.
