New COLA bills on horizon
By Ray Ferraro
PEF Retirees President
I have received many letters from our retirees commenting on the year 2000 legislative achievements.
Many of the letters mentioned the COLA legislation.
New COLA legislation will certainly be placed before the state Legislature this year.
A COLA coalition, comprised of the Alliance of Public Retiree Organizations which includes PEF Retirees, was formed to pass the following:
1. Effective September 1, 2001, spouses receive 50 percent of the deceased retiree’s pension; with COLA increased to 100 percent
2. Effective September 1, 2002:
a) increase future cost-of-living adjustments from 50 percent of the CPI to the full CPI with a maximum of 5 percent for any one year;
b) decrease the eligibility requirements from age 62 and retired five years, to age 55 and retired five years;
c) raise the cap from $18,000 to $25,000.
Last year, a health-insurance bill (56808/Farley-A9733/Vitaliano) passed both houses of the Legislature. This bill would have prohibited public employers from diminishing the employers’ contribution to health insurance.
The bill would have established a clear legislative policy to protect retirees’ health-insurance coverage. Gov. George Pataki did not sign this legislation into law.
In an attempt to satisfy the governor, groups of public employees are seeking to produce legislation that would exclude New York State employees.
The implication of this attitude means that the Health Insurance Protection Act Coalition will split into two groups.
I do not look forward to this approach. Hopefully, the representatives of New York State public employee unions will not support this approach and will draft their own legislation or convince non-state public employees to still support the Farley/Vitaliano concept.