FAIRMONT — An issue with retiree benefits may not have been resolved with legislation, but lawmakers missed the Monday deadline to introduce a bill that would deal with it anyway.
Instead, the Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB) issue, one that is crippling governing bodies in the state, may end up being resolved in a courtroom. It’s too bad, really, that it will take 50 boards of education — Marion County included — to force this extreme financial burden to be resolved for not just BOEs but any governing body with retired employees.
On Friday morning, 50 BOEs filed a lawsuit against the Public Employees Insurance Agency, the Public Employees Insurance Agency Finance Board, and the West Virginia State Auditor in the Circuit Court of Kanawha County. Representatives of the BOEs asked Charleston attorney Howard Seufer to proceed with the lawsuit when and only when it appeared that the OPEB issue would not be dealt with during this legislative session. Monday’s deadline and no hope for a bill to be introduced opened the floodgate for the lawsuit.
The issue is over OPEB, benefits paid to retirees, and who is responsible for paying for those benefits. A new accounting policy adopted by the federal Governmental Accounting Standards Board a few years ago ruled that governments must show what they’ll have to pay for retirees’ benefits as a liability before the employees retire.
The BOEs don’t want to have to pay the state Retiree Health Benefit Trust Fund in any amount that exceeds the state funding currently provided to the BOEs for OPEB. The suit asks the circuit court to declare OPEB the state’s responsibility on behalf of school board employees.
On a local level, Marion County’s OPEB liability could add up to $8 million by the end of the fiscal year in June. Then multiply that by 55 counties. And then add all municipalities. Estimates are that there is an $8 billion gap between available assets and the projected cost of health care and other non-pension retiree benefits promised to public employees.
It is disappointing that the issue had to come to a lawsuit. But the fact that 50 BOEs can all agree on one issue should show how urgent it is that this be resolved.
Sen. Brooks McCabe told The Associated Press that a Senate committee could still launch a limited bill by Friday, but believes a special legislative session on the issue is needed either way.
“We clearly won’t be able to go with a comprehensive bill,” said McCabe, D-Kanawha. “But we’re also clearly making progress. We’re just trying to build consensus along the way rather than get into unnecessary firefights.”
We’d rather see lawmakers called back to Charleston with a complete bill to mull over than a limited bill that won’t fix the problem in its entirety. And we’d rather see that happen than waiting for many, many months as this issue goes through the court system.
