It's happening. Washington is the first state to terminate a public employee pension plan!

I hope that is not legal. Unreal.

Someone responsible for voting yes will probably get killed over this.

But just goes to show that these people elected to office don’t care about you. They lie to your face for a vote just so they can get into power, yet people still eat their bullshite up as long as their team is winning.

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I hope that is not legal. Unreal.

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It is. However, I have always felt public pension liability was certainly going to be a problem for this country one day. I pray they sue the pants off of these greedy government bureaucrats.

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Washington House Bill 2034 (HB 2034) terminates and restates the Law Enforcement Officers’ and Firefighters’ Plan 1 (LEOFF 1), effective 2029, and authorizes the transfer of surplus pension assets for other state uses. While the bill maintains benefit continuity for members, it redirects a significant portion of current plan assets away from pension funding and toward the Climate Commitment Account (CCA) and the State General Fund.

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From Reason, fwiw.
Which is practically Communist now for some reason.
LINK

Close.

Climate Action

Regardless of what you think of first responders, the private owned departments have been tried and failed. People aren’t going to do that line of work with just a 401k. Nobody wants to still be doing that kind of stuff in their 60s and 70s, at least very few will. I know this isn’t about privatization but I’ve seen that thrown around here before. Most of the time they go back to public after a few years and are always having to play catch up.

You can hate the pension first responders get, but that’s the main way to get them

Eta: Some ems crews can do it, usually have extremely high turnover at those places though

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Retired firefighter Shane Kidwell criticizes Washington state for terminating LEOFF Plan 1, the pension for police and firefighters hired before 1977, calling it the first such action in U.S. history as the overfunded plan (160% in 2024, projected 200%+ by 2029) required no contributions for 25 years.
HB 2034, passed by Democrats (House 55-39) and signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson in April 2026, ends the original plan effective June 2029 and restates it while redirecting ~$3.9B surplus to the general/rainy day fund and $569M to the Climate Commitment Account, leaving the new plan at 110% funded.
Retirees including ex-Congressman Dave Reichert have sued to block the asset sweep, arguing it violates pension protections despite bill language ensuring uninterrupted benefits, COLAs, and medical coverage for current members.

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So this sucks, but the plan (which is for people hired before 1977) is still 110 percent funded.

They should have rolled it into LEOFF plan 2, but this won't affect anyone.

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Someone is gonna snap.

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Maybe that is the intent. Sacrifice a low level politician to blame retired cops for violence.

It’s for retirees so no one is accruing additional benefits and no one will lose any benefits, right? I don’t think this is overly concerning.

Now, if it was a plan actively accruing benefits, you’d have a story. All of those in this particular plan will be made whole and either get their monthly annuity from another annuity provider or get a lump sum.