Legislative Update

The first major deadlines of this short session are February 3rd for policy bills and Feb. 7th for fiscal bills with the ultimate deadline for bills to make it out of their houses of origin being February 15th. As before, below is a brief report on selected bills that appear to have some support for advancing. Although any bill from the last or current session can always reappear. (See SSB 5326 below).

The third week of the legislative session was the last full week for new policy bills to be heard in committees and zipped by. Next week is the first significant cut-off date of this year’s short session. Bills must pass out of their committee of origin by February 3. Next week’s hearings are all about taking executive action, where bills may be amended and voted out of committee (or not).

Since covering pension/retirement/health insurance issues on behalf of WASA and AWSP, there are a few important points we have learned. This is just a brief summary of selected retirement related topics. However, the importance of advance planning cannot be overstated. These are not issues to put off until the last month of either one’s impending retirement or approaching Medicare eligible age. It’s best to complete your retirement application 30–90 days before you plan to retire.

“I don’t get political” ~ Betty White. We all can’t be Ms. White because the Washington State Legislature is in session and working hard at proposing and moving legislature of import and educators need to be involved.

The second week of this nine-week legislative session ends today. Things are moving fast. The education committees in both the House and the Senate continued to hear bills and take executive action this week. The first major deadline of this year is February 3rd. That’s when policy bills must pass out of their original committees. The first deadline for fiscal committees to pass their bills out of committee is February 7th.