To our Tier 5 & 6 members:
COBANC was selected as one of the state court unions to work on tier reform for those who are in ERS tiers 5 and 6. COBANC on its own has filed legislation every year since 2014, through our lobbyist Peter Meringolo who also happens to be the Chairman of the NYS Public Employee Conference (PEC). The committee has approximately 25 representatives from state, county, city, police, and fire unions. As you can imagine all these groups vary and the goal was to try to put together legislation that would help all involved. After this year it is agreed that we will continue to put our legislation in as we have while also trying to use global support from the conference to achieve all our goals to reform both tiers.
NYSPEC Chairman Peter Meringolo and PEC lobbyist Pete Paterson testified in Albany on October 11 at the Senate Civil Service & Pensions Committee hearing regarding the issues we’re facing with recruitment and retention among our member units. They testified on a panel with several units that are also a part of NYSPEC, which worked out very well.
The Senate committee was chaired by Senator Robert Jackson, and Senate committee members were present as well. Furthermore, several other groups testified on panels following our lobbyists, including the AFL-CIO, CSEA, and NYSUT.
Labor had a strong voice in the hearing, and that was a huge plus. Also included within the testimony were various pieces of legislation that would address some of the nuances of the newer tiers. We would like to piggyback off these hearings and start to define how our membership would like to proceed in finalizing our strategy to address this important issue now that the 2024 legislative session is almost upon us.
We discussed different strategies during the last Zoom meeting, and believe we need to hone in on a final strategy at the NYSPEC annual meeting/convention in early December. Many of our groups have introduced individual legislation in an attempt to attain better benefits for their newer members, as we have done. However, now that crunch time is approaching, as a group, we will need to discuss and come up with a plan to either collectively advance a global legislative effort that affects all our member units in a certain way, or take an individualistic approach with NYSPEC support.
We can do this, but we all know that it is an extremely complex issue with great fiscal implications, and will take time. That being said, our members deserve no less than 100% of our effort, and I know by the names that are on this Committee that is exactly what the members are getting.
We submitted three issues to the committee and they are: member contributions of 3-6% based on earnings, full retirement of 62, 63/30 instead of 55/30, and overtime pay over the annual cap is not pensionable and cannot be used in a final average earnings calculation (FAE).
If you have other concerns not addressed here, please email me directly at: peter.piciulo@cobanc.org
We will keep you updated as needed and as always, we will give a lobbyist report at the delegate meetings and our general membership meetings.
In unity,
Peter Piciulo, President, COBANC