Retirees Update
By Tom Moutes, RLACEI Legislative Director
Email: Tom.Moutes@RLACEI.org
It’s important to call out issues when they occur, and it’s also important to say “good job” when that is appropriate.
In the last couple of months, LACERS has had to respond to three ill-conceived motions adopted by the City Council. Those motions have included two attacks on our retiree healthcare:
- Council File Number 20-1606, which aimed to reduce the City’s healthcare costs for “current employees and retirees, especially those retirees who are not yet eligible for Medicare” and
- Council File Number 21-0295, which would have replaced the great healthcare coverage we get now with high-deductible health plans plus health savings accounts.
The third motion – Council File Number 19-1577 – would have interfered with the LACERS Board’s exclusive authority to make investment decisions for the pension fund.
For each of the three motions, the LACERS staff wrote a comprehensive report detailing why the way it already was doing business was best for the LACERS membership (and for the City too, for that matter!). In each case, the LACERS Board unanimously adopted the staff reports, thus rebuffing the City Council’s attempts to interfere with our benefits and how those benefits are funded.
It’s hard to know whether the Council motions were borne out of ignorance, desperation due to the perceived budgetary problems at the time, or both, but it’s comforting to know that the LACERS staff and Board did the right things in response to those motions – so “good job”!
