I listed some of VEA’s bills on Friday,
but here is yet another – Delegate Todd Gilbert’s HB 709. This bill will require Child Protective
Services to complete child abuse investigations in a timely manner, reducing the
time an innocent teacher who is being investigated is out of the classroom,
reducing the time the schools system has to pay both the teacher and the
substitute, and reducing the time the accused has to await a finding.
Senator Emmett Hanger’s SB 420,
which requires the Fiscal Impact Statements provide to legislators to include
the impact of the bill on current and future retirees, was reported by the
Senate Finance Committee on a 14-0 vote today.
This bill will now go to the full Senate, and because there were no
votes against it, it will be on the uncontested calendar and considered in a
block.
The STINKER is Senator Steve
Newman’s SB 89. Let me give you some
background. In 2012 the General Assembly
passed a bill which provided VRS members hired after January 1, 2014 a pension substantially
inferior to what members hired before that date have. The quick and dirty is that they will have to
work 37 years to get a benefit equivalent to what their predecessors earned in
30 years.
In its original form, the hybrid
plan offered no disability protection.
Senator Watkins and others worked with VEA to ensure that hybrid plan
participants would have disability protection offered by VRS or equivalent
protection offered by the local government or school board.
Senator Newman’s SB 89 lowers the income replacement from what
exists in the current Virginia Local Disability Plan. The current short-term plan reimburses
between 60%- 100% for the first 125 days of disability, depending on how long
you have been employed. After 125 days, the disabled employee goes on
long term disability at 60% income replacement. Senator Newman's bill would only ensure 60% replacement income. This further degrades the employment benefits of hybrid plan participants.
SB 89 will be heard by the Senate Finance Committee tomorrow.
