Good afternoon. I like to call this meeting of the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee to order at 1 32 p.m.
We are in belts room one or five
The Thomas Stewart building in the nation's most beautiful capital city of Juneau, Alaska today is Wednesday
January 28th 2026 the numbers present are Senator Dunbar
Senator Merrick Senator Gray Jackson Senator Yunt and myself Senator Bjorkman let the record reflect
that we have a quorum to conduct business.
Welcome everyone to Senate Labor and Commerce.
I'd like to remind everyone
to please turn off or silence your cell phones
and join with me in extending a warm
Senate labor and commerce welcome
to our recording secretary, Carrie Tupoe,
and our LAO moderator, Doug Bridges.
We have two items on our agenda today.
First up is House Bill 78,
retirement systems defined benefit option.
Followed by Senate Bill 198,
PERS, TERS retirement and medical eligibility.
First up is House Bill 78.
This is our third hearing on this bill.
Previously, we had a presentation of the bill,
we adopted a committee substitute as a working document
and took invited testimony.
Today, it is my intention to take public testimony
on the Bill and set it aside for further consideration.
This time, I would like to open public
testimony on House bill 78
How we will do public testimony as we have not taken any public
testimony yet this year is what I like to do is rotate between in the room public
testimony, as well as online public testimony, making sure that people have
equal opportunity to speak. Everyone will get two minutes to
speak after two
minutes have expired. I will let you know that two
that you should wrap up your testimony and if you don't wrap
up within about 15 seconds I will nod to Mr. Bridges over here and he will
transition to the next public test fire. Okay, all right. This time I'll open
public testimony on House Bill 78.
Is there anyone in the room who is looking to testify today?
Mr. Andreasen.
Thank you for the record.
Neil Sandreisen, I'm the Executive Director
of the Alaskan Municipal League.
If by two minutes you met two pages,
I've got that.
I'll do my best, Chair.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today.
HV78 has a direct and significant impact on local governments who as employers or
minority within PERS, but bear the consequences of the state's decision making.
This means that for
the promise and potential of strength and recruitment of attention, our members also
feel the weight of net pension liability that accrues when the State doesn't get it right.
And a high actuarial rate that limits other kinds of investments that they might make in employees.
Yes, the stake carries the burden beyond 22%.
a compromise that acknowledged that local governments had no control for the conditions
that created the unfunded liability, but we often talk about how for many local
governments they can't afford to stay in nor get out.
With that in mind, AML would like to offer three ways in which this committee could alleviate
the challenges that employers face and improve the condition in our communities.
But first, we would encourage you to remove the provision that establishes the 2008 salary floor.
This anachronistic measure was intended to stabilize the system in free fall, but at this point leaves employers little flexibility to adjust their payroll based on circumstances that have changed in the last 18 years.
The effect is that if an employer reduces their payroll below the 2018 number, they continue paying as if they were stuck in time.
This would make much more sentences something like 75% of a rolling three-year average.
It allows the system to withstand shocks and for employers to adjust based on lost revenue, governmental efficiencies, etc.
Second, there are many reasons for
employers become delinquent in payments, but for those who truly can't afford to remain in,
the cruel of payments is considerable and, for some, insurmountable.
Law currently requires these employers be exited from the program,
but this process somehow hasn't been as efficient or effective as it needs to be.
Ultimately, what is needed is for a mechanism that moves quickly, that more quickly halts
accrual, which means the employer stops collecting or being responsible for collecting and remitting
soon enough that debt doesn't accrue beyond their means.
It could be something like if employer falls behind in more than two payrolls, it's required
to pause participation in person until it can remedy the situation.
For current delinquencies, they make up so little from a system's perspective that if
you waived or the state assumed their liability, would be better than letting it continue to
Finally, we understand that termination studies are well intended from a systems perspective, but they're also a barrier to local decision-making.
Especially for small employers whose few employees are likely not going to affect the actuarial rate or net pension liability much at all.
The state's act's raise could determine a threshold under which termination studies don't apply.
You could give discretion to the department, to exit employers who simply can't afford to remain, nor leave at this point.
So that they can address their local circumstance without the burden of a liability that would otherwise continue for years to come, but without a corresponding public benefit.
Thank you again to Bill Sponsor for being willing to consider these issues along the way.
to reiterate, we're willing to work with you to remove the salary floor,
allow communities facing delinquency to exit the system,
create an off ramp that doesn't always require termination studies.
I would also maybe close with commending the arm board for recent decisions to accelerate and
fulfill their obligation to address the net pension liability in a timely manner,
and especially by 2039. Thank you, to the committee.
Thank you very much for your testimony
We'll go now online to Joelle Hall
Look at that's nature Berkman and members of the committee. Thank You for taking all the testimony today
Very sorry. I can't be there in person. Oh, I was planning on it. It's looking forward to it
Later on in the session
I came to the last day of Belzino in 2006, and my first session was 2007.
I've been involved in the Alaska Public Pension College in over 20 years.
And in those 20-years, we worked to address what we believe is a catastrophic decision
being in 2005 to close our defined benefit pension.
In the early days,
we talked mostly about what was thought might happen.
As a result of the closure, we talked about poor retention, lack of competitiveness, and
the slow degradation of a number of people who were looking at the state of Alaska or
university, our public schools and our municipalities as good jobs where you could spend a career
and do good work for your community.
Well, no one on this committee was in the legislature at that time, you know the story
And it falls to this generation of lawmakers
to see their way to a solution out of the predicament
that they visited so many years ago.
I'm going to cut this a little shorter
because I have less time than I thought.
We believe that solution in part is a new defined benefit
system.
As I mentioned before, we've tried many other systems
that members of a couple to solve the problems.
What's going on with rampant vacancies, a revolving door of workforce, and a pay and
benefits that do not compete with other states or with the private sector.
In short, we're losing this battle.
Through the last 20 years, I've heard every rash now about why returning to a DV is unimpossible.
But all will stand to risk.
Opponents want the state to have a no risk option.
Well, that's what we have right now.
The state bears no risks.
And that doesn't work because the incentives are wrong.
This system, in fact, is very risky.
Last year, a minority member in House Finance stated on the record that, quote, ADB plan
has fixed incentives for retention, unquote.
We couldn't agree more.
Moreover, these incentives are for the worker and for
the state.
The state's interest here is a functioning agencies that can
carry out their duties, assign to them on budget and on time.
And so doing, the voice system failures finds an over budget
pay pay incentives.
We've been encouraging you.
We should encourage longevity to reduce turnovers and errors.
The current system has been failing on all of those metrics.
It's risky.
AKPBC has worked to innovate and iterate and create a system that gets at this challenge.
We've listened to legislators and experts in pensions from all across the country.
What you see before you is a bill that is the distillation of the best practices and
the thinking about how you build a System for the 21st century.
SB78 is shared risk model.
Actions to increase all other forms of pay have not mitigated our problem.
legislators before you have tried every other option. We have come here for decades telling you
what our members want and need. SB 70 gives the state the flexibility it needs to make adjustments
and to protect for future generations. It's time to take hold action.
Thank you for your time. To look at this modern. Thank
you Chair Berkman. Thanks very much.
Chris Murray, if you take a seat at
Thank you for joining us, please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin your testimony
My name is Chris Heidman. I'm a Juno resident.
I am a teacher at Juno Douglas High School. You are at cut clay
I'm a past president of the Juno Education Association and a proud member of NEA Alaska.
I'd like to start today by thanking you all for your service and an opportunity to testify
today.
I am here again to urge you to support a return to a Define Benefit System for all public
service employees.
As an educator, I want to speak from my perspective.
As a educator and classroom teacher, last year, while we were all talking about the
increase funding for public education, I continued to hear people over and over
use the phrase recruitment and retention and it was used as a reason to increase
funding and of course it wasn't one of the key reasons that we needed to do that.
But I do believe a return to a defined benefit pension for TERS 3 and PERS 4
would be one the most substantive things that this legislature could do to help
As a Terz three member with almost 20 years of service time according to my
empower account as of this morning I am 23% on my way of my goal to have 60% of
my average income in retirement. To reach my goals I would have to work 44
years. I do not intend to worked as a public school
teacher for 44 years if I retire at 30 I won't even be close.
One of the solutions that I've heard put around to help solve the solution for
Terrace 3 teachers would be to allow us access to SBS as a replacement for
Social Security. I would advise you against this as
a plan as well. This would have to be a half measure at best for our new
recruits of which there are very few and it would do absolutely nothing for
people like me who have been in the system for almost 20 years and I have
The first wave of terrors three and purse four will begin retiring in about five years and after that
there will be a large number of us entering retirement and we will do so knowing that
We will run out of money before most of Us hit the end of our lives
Alaska is the only state that does not offer a defined benefit option for public service
And I would urge you to do your part to return us to a define benefit. Thank you
Thank You very much for your testimony
We'll go back online to Zachary Christiansen
We state your name and affiliation for the record and begin your test morning
Thank, you
My name is Zachary Christensen. I'm a managing director of the pension integrity project at
Reason Foundation. Reason foundation is a nonprofit think tank and we offer consulting and analysis
on a variety of different policy areas and my team in particular focuses on pensions.
We offer pro bono technical assistance, actuarial modeling, a lot of
the technical assistant side of helping lawmakers and any other stakeholders.
And we come from a particular perspective that's trying to establish
valuable and attractive benefits for public workers, but also in a way that
sustainable and affordable without a lot of unexpected costs in the in
the long term.
House Bill 78 proposes reinstating a defined benefit
at DBE pension plan for new public employees.
The stated goal is to improve recruitment and retention,
but it's important to evaluate whether this change
addresses the work for challenges you face
and whether it does so in a way that's
fiscally responsible and sustainable.
Our actuarial modeling, I should mention,
we, my team's put together actuarial modeling
of Alaska's pension plans that helps give some
context and some a little bit of vision on the next 30 years of what that could look like with
this policy applied. And under a best case scenario, HB 78 would cost Alaska an additional 1.4 billion
dollars over the Next 30 Years. Under a more, what you could call a, a
more realistic or familiar scenario.
If the investment returns over the next 30 years resemble something like Alaska has experienced over
the last 23 years, that cost would increase significantly. It could be up to as much as $7
billion over over next thirty years. Of course that outcome just depends significantly on the
return that actually ends up happening over that next amount of time and that's kind of
a lot of the point of what we're trying to convey here is that HB78 would establish a significant
be imposed on future generations and future employers that could be very challenging for
the state budget to handle. Advocates of HB 78 often cite employee turnover as the rationale
But we've looked at some data around the country, and we're familiar with a lot of other states
and plans and what they're doing.
And we found that there's a little to back up the idea that this would completely fix
that.
And in general, Alaska doesn't appear to be much of an outlier on that, actually.
We've look at workforce data, I have this analysis is available on our website, by the
way.
And you can take a look in more depth.
but we found that Alaska actually retains public workers better than most states.
In fact, from 2012 to 2023, Alaska had the 11th lowest state employee turnover rate in the country
and that's of course you know despite the fact that they've had this DC system for over 20 or
for around 20 years. During this period Alaska's average annual return turnover
rate was about 13.6% which is well below the national average of 18.7%.
Mr. Richardson, thank you for the testimony.
Thank you very much.
We'll go back to the room.
Jane Andrine.
Please state your name and affiliation for
the record and begin your testimony
Hello, my name is Jane Andreen, I live over in Douglas.
I am an AARP volunteer, as you can see,
but I'm speaking from my own personal experience.
I was really fortunate to retire 11 years and 28 days ago.
But who's counting?
When I came to work for the state in 1994,
I come from Homer, Alaska, and almost my entire career
had been in nonprofits.
So when I cam here,
In my late thirties, I had no retirement.
My husband and I were both fortunate enough to be able to come in as tier two,
which meant we have defined retirement."
What I found in my 21 years of working for the state was that most of those in a supervisory capacity is it became increasingly difficult to match salaries as well as have the benefits equivalent to what the private sector was providing, and also tribal health.
I was working in public health in non-clinical.
setting, so it was primary prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault.
But I also know, because I work closely with public health nursing, that after the defined
There was a real struggle for nurses to be able to stay or to
be hired into and stay in their positions.
It was just much easier to go to work for hospitals or doctors offices or whatever.
So based on that, I strongly encourage you to support HB 78.
I think it's time for us to get back on board with some type of support for people.
as in retirement that I think it's important to mention is we're staying in Alaska.
We have the financial security to stay in Alaskan and as such are volunteering, working,
living, playing, spending our money here in alaska.
And I that's a big important part to recognize.
Thank you.
Thank very much for your testimony.
Please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin your testimony
Yeah, good afternoon. My name is Tom. I close on out.
I am president of the Alaska professional firefighters and represent firefighters from across the state
First testified on this topic back in 2005
And since then I along with countless others have been working on. This legislation to
find a sustainable retirement system for last this workforce.
The creation of House Bill 78 was not an overnight decision.
Years of research, modeling, tweaking, sitting down with legislators like yourselves,
following the recommendations have led us to the point where we are today.
House bill 78 does a number of things
retirement systems across the country have put in place.
You know, we didn't recreate their wheel here.
We went out and found best practices
that other states use for successful systems.
How did other state survive the 2008 crash?
And we looked at all those systems
and we put them together, this modeling
and this legislation that we have in front of us
to bring those best practice forward.
I wanted to touch on a couple of those
uh really quickly and kind of highlight a few of them. Uh one of
them is minim age requirements. Looking around the country what
other states were doing and the importance retirement systems
weren't created to live 50, 60 years off of. So putting a
minim a requirement while that might have upset some of my
public safety members uh around this state was a
realization that retirement systems are based on that, just retirement.
Also, one of the largest points that got Alaska in trouble was minimum contributions.
Any states that have underfunded systems, when the markets have high returns,
they took years off of making their minimum payments. However,
Bad and bad years. They didn't make extra payments. So this caused a significant
deviancy in
funding levels
So what we did in this plan is we created a minimum contribution
Employers have a contribution of 8% employers a minimal contribution to 12%. I'll skip ahead
Again, I had much more to assess on these topics,
but we all know that payroll is the largest cost factor for employees.
This system was created with a sliding scale to be able to offset
when markets are good and markets
are bad for both employees and employers.
A employer with the minimum of 12 percent,
the current max of 22 percent has the ability to say
the legacy plans go away. That money goes back to our municipalities, back
to the state for whatever reasons they need to use it.
A lot of discussion about this legislation is about risk.
The legacy plan plays 100% of the risk on employers.
The DC plan currently puts 100 percent of that risk
on employees. This plan here, House Bill 78, is a shared risk plan.
Thank you
Thank You very much. Thank, you
We'll go back to the room now Patrick Shepard
Okay, thank you for being here
Back online Jennifer Schmitz
Chair Borkman and members of Senate Labor Commerce Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify today
in support of House Bill 78.
For the record, my name is Jennifer Schmidt
and I'm speaking on behalf of the Alaska Council
of School Administrators,
where I serve as the Director
of Alaska Educator Retentment and Recruitment Center.
Archives of statewide hubs for recruitment
and retention in Alaska,
and my role is to support all school districts
with educator recruitment and retention.
From both data and direct experience of districts, I can say clearly, retention, not recruitment
alone is Alaska's biggest challenge and retirement security is central to that issue.
Research from the university shows that each time a district replaces a teacher, it costs
more than $20,000.
Anchorage estimates it's over $29,00 for each teacher.
Most of that cost occurs after hiring through on-boarding, mentoring, and lost instructional
momentum.
Alaska's turnover rate is also well above the national average, particularly in rural
and remote communities where instability has felt most by our children across Alaska.
This level of churned destabilizes schools, disrupts instruction, and negatively impacts
student learning.
Today, the art job board lists 729 educator openings statewide, many which remain unfilled.
into a cycle of content hiring and too often reliance on emergency certificates.
The children in Alaska deserve better.
They deserve the opportunity to have strong prepared teachers from day one,
not classrooms in constant transition.
Last year we surveyed school leaders across Alaska to ask why educators are leaving.
The number one reason by a clear margin was lack of a defined benefit retirement.
That's not surprising.
We're the only state in the nation that doesn't offer one to new teachers.
Since 06, educators here have been placed into the defined contribution plan and are not covered by social security.
When educators reach mid-career and begin thinking seriously about long-term stability, many leave.
And now because they don't love Alaska, because it can't afford to stay.
I know that's personally.
My husband and I were both born and raised in Alaska.
We spent nearly 30 years as educators and raise our family in this state.
we were able to make the commitment because we had confidence in our health care and retirement
security. Without that, our story likely would have been different like so many stories we hear
today. House Bill 78 is about keeping experience educators in classrooms. A defined benefit is not
a perk, it's a proven retention tool. Investing in stability costs less than content turnover
and gives Alaska students the consistency they deserve. Thank you for your time and we respectfully
Thank you very much, Ms. Schmitz.
Is there anyone else in the room who would like to testify to this item?
Yes, ma'am.
Please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin your testimony.
Thank You, Mr. Chair, for that record. Sorry, I guess I should skip in before I start talking.
My name is Heidi Dragus, I'm the Executive Director of the Alaska State Employees Association.
Prior to this position,
I had a career as a labor attorney and I served as Commissioner of Labor for Governor Bill Walker.
Most importantly,
I am a lifelong Alaskan, the daughter of two proud public servants,
and have witnessed firsthand the deterioration of our state workforce over the past 20 years.
ASCA represents more than 8,000 employees in the general government unit.
We are the beating heart of state service.
Alaska has seen an unprecedented out migration of workers
for more than a decade.
Growing up here, it was a point of pride
to say you worked for the state of Alaska.
Fast forward to the present.
We struggle to recruit and retain workers and it's taking a toll on those who remain.
We are asking more of state employees than we have ever asked and we're giving them less.
Some employees that I hear from are doing the work of two and three and sometimes more employees.
We're losing workers faster than can replace them.
In our wages and retirement system no longer attract and keep the workers the way that we are used to.
The recruitment and retention crisis is costing us real dollars.
The last two years finds of over 16 million to the U.S. Department of Health due to
the backlog in SNAP and Medicaid, the debacle with the annual
step to U S. department of transportation, a crisis and payroll.
We couldn't even pay our employees on time.
thousands of errors because of a lack of experience because
of the recruitment and retention problems in the payroll division.
It's hard to overstate the toll recruitment
and retension has taken on our existing workforce.
When I began my tenure at ASCA three years ago, I learned quickly the state's response to dealing with the ongoing recruitment and retention crisis is with a patchwork of letters of agreements.
Exceptions to our collective bargaining agreements to address ongoing workforce needs.
I've signed dozens of these agreements, these are incentive pay to retain workers,
recruitment pay, to entice workers.
Travel premiums, overtime pay that are paid to employees that otherwise overtime exempt.
millions and millions of dollars.
Letters of agreements are useful and necessary tools to address ongoing issues related to the workforce,
but they are band-aids, and they should be used sparingly.
Instead, these letters of agreements and contracting out state jobs have been the primary tools used to address the crisis.
These tools are creating friction in our workforce.
It's like playing whack-a-mole. You smack down one mole, and then you've got another one popping up because you have employees justifiably saying, hey, why are they getting your retention bonus? Why not me?
We did negotiate a strong contract last year for our members, but our wages are still behind and the increases
Suggested for most classifications by the long delayed salary study. It's not clear that it's they're going to be implemented
Pensions for public service will return stability
and predictability to our state workforce, providing defined benefits is how the public sector
competes with the private sector for the best and brightest workers.
When surveyed, 89% of our members support a return to a defined benefit.
pension system. I believe it is possible for Alaska to be a premier place to live and work
again. And one of the most important steps we can take is to provide pensions for public
service. Alaskans deserve reliability and predictability in the delivery of public services.
Thank you for your testimony.
We'll go next online to Willie Keple.
Before we get to you, Mr. Capel, I would like to recognize a couple of other legislators that are in the room
Senator Kauffman and rep cop are here. They've been here since the beginning of the meeting
Mr.. Capal, please begin your testimony
Yes, and thank you for your time. I'd like
Have a little transparency on display here and when I'm done talking I like each member of a committee
to go around the table and declare whether they've ever accepted campaign contributions
from any of the state unions or their listed officials and officers. That's just for clarity.
I'd like to take you back to 2006. I've lived in the bush, I don't know, since 77.
was debating this very subject, 2006.
And he declared, and it's on tape,
that they couldn't keep teachers
even with full-blown perds and terrors.
It wasn't working in 2006, it was not gonna work now.
I go to the, I live in Quenahawk,
450 miles due west of Anchorage, you know, roads.
And I talked to all the teachers
that have ever come to this village over the last 11 years.
Right now, we don't have teachers except one native teacher that is in favor of defined
benefits.
What they want is a benefit package.
They can pack up and they can take with them.
They have zero intentions to spend in five years.
If they do spend five days in the bush, it's a miracle.
They want to be able to take their full benefits, they don t want handcuffs to the union.
define contribution plan, they want higher wages, and they would like to be
added back into Social Security. And so I would have to ask that the
committee forgo all this that we've been through so many times because I look
at this as nothing but minute campaign speeches for the upcoming
elections. There's no money to pay for what you folks want to do with this bill.
We all know what the governor's just put out brand new taxes for all of us to sit and consider and you folks are going to be considered if we heard before long, whether you like it or not, I guess you could table them, but that won't kill the discussion.
And I would just have to say that if you want higher returns,
Corpus we should probably be moving to the S&P 500 or the Vanguard and do away
with West Harm Quas that's in the investment package already we're
spending not what it was a nine hundred and thirty seven million dollars last
year just for services to maintain our permanent fund we can do way better
You up your money made through the stock market on these defined contribution plans.
Everybody comes out better, plus we're not looking down the road 20 years to where nobody
has an idea of how much it's actually going to cost to maintain these accounts for medical.
I can tell you that the city of Bethel still owes millions of dollars.
Thank you for your testimony, Willie.
Thank You very much.
Please, thank you.
Sarah Merrick.
Thank Mr. Chairman.
I would just like to direct Mr Keple to the website for the Alaska Public
Offices Commission, where he can find all campaign expenditures and
contributions for any elected official.
Is there anyone else in the room who wishes to testify?
We'll stay on the, oh, I see a hand in back.
Please come forward.
State your name and affiliation and begin your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm sorry it was not down in
the Room early enough to sign up on
the sheet and I appreciate this chance.
I am Brett Huber,
I' m the State Director for Americans for Prosperity.
So thank you all for dealing with this issue and the issues you deal with generally,
thank-you for your service. I had a great conversation with the sponsor of this legislation last week
and believed that he wants to do his best to try to handle the recruitment and retention issues.
And I believe that, he thinks, genuinely, that this is a way to
do so. From my organization's perspective, we line up with where reason's coming from and
Actuarials that they've run, the potential that if you have poor returns, you could have additional future risk.
It could be up to $7 billion.
We're concerned about that from our organization side, but we still do understand you ever recruit and retention issue.
I hear some conversation in the building about the teachers.
that at the time that this was handled originally, didn't have or chose not to,
whichever was opportunity for SBS, and I know there's some other legislation that's
working through the process on that, be happy to take a close look at that.
I'm concerned that there are a number of young people entering the work course now.
that aren't trying to be handcuffed to a position.
My father grew up in a time where he worked 35 years,
got his gold watch and retired.
I worked in the time
where I've had multiple careers.
Current people coming up are likely to have
a lot of careers in that time.
So I don't know that we can handcuff anybody to
a career, so portability's a benefit for those folks.
If you look at the private side,
they can't fill jobs, they cannot attract either.
COVID changed the world.
for jobs, right?
They changed the world for who's in the workforce,
who has chosen to stay at home and raise kids.
It's made a lot of differences, so we don't believe
that the potential benefit of retention and recruitment
is equivalent to the potentially risk
of the increased potential liability.
So that's where we're coming from.
I'm, again, happy to be involved in a discussion.
Happy to bring our position forward
and appreciate the opportunity to have my first
chance to testify on this new role before you Mr. Chairman and this committee thank you very much.
Thank you. Very much Mr Huber.
We'll go back online now to Miss Jackie Hanson. Please state your name and affiliation for the
record and begin your testimony. Yeah good afternoon Mr Chairman members of the committee.
Thank You for your opportunity to speak today. My name is Jackie Manson. I serve as a superintendent
I have dedicated over 20 years of education to Alaska.
I'm a longtime resident of Prince of Wales Island, and I personally built my home in
Craig.
My husband is a retired Alaskan teacher and our two sons, now graduates, proudly received
an Alaska public school education.
I am here today to support House Bill 78, a bill that keeps teachers in our school strengthens
our student success and build stronger communities.
At Craig City School District, all of our tier 1 teachers are retired and the last of
our Tier 2 teachers, are now preparing to retire.
That means our future depends heavily on tier 3 teachers and right now they have no
pension option.
Alaska is the only state in the nation that does not offer teachers a defined benefit
This makes it much harder for districts like CCSD to retain experience features, especially in our rural community.
As long as everything matters, teachers who stay build trust with families.
These three men are school cultures. They invest easily in their students.
Health Bill 78 helps restore that security and sends a clear message that Alaska values its educators.
For the sake of our students,
Our schools and our community I urge you to support House Bill 78. Thank you.
Thank You very much for your testimony.
I'll bring it back to the room. Is anyone else wish to testify on House bill 78 in the
room? Seeing no one right now. We'll get another opportunity in just a minute.
We will go back online to Ms. Marge Stone King.
Thank you, Chair Beocman, and Senators of the Committee on Large Stone King with AARP, Alaska,
where I service the advocacy director.
Older Alaskans deserve to retire with independence, security,
and indignity.
AARP is the largest nonprofit nonpartisan organization representing the interests of Americans,
age 50 and older and their families.
Financial security is a key component of our advocacy agenda.
We at AARP strongly believe that all individuals have the right to be felt reliant and live
with dignity and retirement.
We further believe Americans of all ages, including those in Alaska, are faced with a
crisis, or the goal of achieving an adequate and secure retirement is becoming increasingly
difficult.
It's not surprising that defined benefit pensions increase retirement security and therefore
In fact, according to a study by the National Institute on Retirement Security, older households
without a pension are nine times more likely to live in poverty.
Without a modest lifetime retirement benefit, most of Alaska's value public employees may
come to more, excuse me, not most, more of Alaskan's valued public employee may come
An environment our state does not want to enable for our teachers, our public safety professionals, and other public servants.
Greater reliance on government subsidies increases costs for all and trips away at the ability to live with dignity and trust efficiency in one's retirement years.
Alaska's inability to offer a public employee's assembly of retirement security,
the kind provided by a defined benefit pension has put us at a
significant disadvantage as compared to other states in recruiting and
retaining a qualified workforce and consequently hindered our ability to
provide reliable public services which is also impacting older Alaskans. AARP is
happy to work with the legislature to achieve the end of a defined benefit
pension plan which was essential for providing retirement security to
ensuring a quality reliable public services for Alaskans and strengthening
Alaska's future. To that end we support HB 78. Thank you for your time.
Thank You very much for
your testimony Ms. Stone King. We'll give folks a chance in the room as there
are lots of people who haven't testified if you'd like to do so. Come
Mr. Glazer, please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin your testimony.
Yes, my name is Gordon Glaser. I'm affiliated with ARP, HNet, the Anchorage Municipal
Advisory Committee, and the best chair of the Alaska Commission on Aging. But I am seeking for
I'm a long-term state employee, I live a modified farm based on that defined benefits.
And let me say I looked at the new program, it's a very modest program.
It's not less like the old one.
You've heard a lot of testimony today from many good speakers that some were facts, some
A roadmap is known by these tools, and the tools for state government are the employees,
and bluntly, the goals are broken. When we cannot deliver direct services,
because we literally cannot hire the staff,
and staff that we hire, we can not retain. Something is wrong with this system.
of moving again moving and moving it forward
in terms of getting this passed.
But there's a definite need for a defined benefit system.
It worked for me, it worked my wife.
You all know thousands of people who are in the state
and are living in decent life, not in great life.
They're not driving around with lots of poor horses
or flying their second or third plane.
The members of the community, I can tell you some
in active and senior prayers, they are the backbone
of our volunteer system.
They are their caregivers for their children.
And sometimes they're sandwich generations of grandparents.
Again, i would encourage you to look at the numbers,
look to the facts, talk to your neighbors,
they have a kid in school or they don't know
or their have relatives in the pioneer home
and to take care of them and see if they can have them.
how they're doing in terms of hiring and retaining staff.
The fine benefit is a system I encourage you to support it.
Thank you for your time.
I'm going to be happy to answer any questions.
Thank very much, Mr. Glazer.
We'll go next to Emily Moody.
Ms. Moody, please state your name.
Hi, this is my name is Emily Moody. I'm calling from Cordoba.
I've been teaching for 15 years and I am calling in strong support of HB 78 to return
behind the benefit to public service employees. And I had to tell you guys this story.
I was at a teacher conference in Denver, Colorado just last month. Well, yeah, last
And we were talking about exactly this issue of retention and recruitment.
And I mentioned to a group of teachers, educators, not from Alaska, that in the state of Alaska
we do not have a defined benefit and that teachers do no pay for social security.
And i just wish that i could have taken a picture of their faces because the look on
And then once they finally composed themselves, they looked at me and they said,
why would anybody go and teach in the state of Alaska if there's no
defining benefits and there is no social security and no safety net for educators?
Why would anyone devote their life to that?
And, you know, I just looked to them and I said we don't. We can't
we have a horrible time trying to recruit teachers and even harder time retaining them.
I said in the state of Alaska, it's a great place to come and learn how to be a good teacher,
but if you want to a be professional, if want make a living,
if any financial security, you have to leave the State. And that's exactly what happens.
So I am calling from my classroom in Cordova to speak in strong terms about trying
and doing whatever it takes to get it passed because I believe in public education and
you simply cannot believe or say that you are a supporter of public
education, and be opposed to a defined benefit because it is the only way that we are going
to be able to give people to move here and get people
It is just not fair to ask people to designate their life to this profession and then run
the risk of ending up in poverty when they retire, which is what is going to happen
to a lot of Tier 3 teachers.
And I don't think the state of Alaska is prepared for that to happened, for people who have
dedicated their lives to these professions to end up running out of money in retirement.
The reality is every other state has been able to figure this out.
So I just want to encourage this legislative body.
I know that you do good work.
I knew that all of you are good meetings.
You figure out a way for the love of God
to return the defined benefits to public service employees.
Thank you so much.
Please get this through.
Thank You.
Thank very much, Ms. Moody.
Is there anyone in the room who wishes to testify on this item?
I'll just keep asking in case you change your mind.
We'll go back online to Sarah Seifert.
Can you state your name and affiliation for the record
and begin your testimony?
Hello, so I'm Sarah Siford.
I am here at the Fairbanks LIO with Erica Burr.
I want to turn it over to her so she can testify.
I need to push.
You just talk.
Just talk at normal volume.
Can ya hear me?
We can.
So hey thank you for just I'll pause your time and I'm not keeping track but as we go through this
we'll get a little bit better at taking public testimony so I need to I
need understand and for the record we need
to understand who is providing testimony. So just if you are the testifier to state your name
and affiliation for record and begin your testimony
Hello I am Erica Burr. I m a Fairbanks parent and educator and i am testifying in support of HBC 78
Thank you for taking our testimony.
Early in my career, I was skeptical of civil servants
pensions as a legislative priority,
but increasingly over the past 15 years,
teaching and farming high schools
and watching skilled 30-plus year educators retire
in week gaping holes in our programs.
I've come to believe that a well-medified benefit
is crucial for retaining and recruiting dedicated,
qualified people who can protect, preserve, and nurture
what we love about our state.
I speak to you particularly about our dearest love and hope our children.
We must actively create an environment that prepares, retains, and supports the hardworking
professionals who care for and educate our Children.
We have such a shortage of teachers that our district has had to look abroad to build
agencies.
As I learned while teaching in Senegal, West Africa, teaching a community with different
expectations and values is a huge challenge and takes much more patience and courage
than teaching your home culture.
to understand and meet student needs.
It's hard to be effective.
Our children deserve the best we can give them.
An education, that is experienced.
We need teachers who make their careers
in our communities every year, teaching and learning
alongside our families, showing our kids they matter
and helping build the social and academic skills they need
to contribute to our economy and communities.
We needed to ask in teachers
and we need to keep well qualified teachers
who come from outside.
Teachers are ready to show up every day to make the best of very difficult conditions.
We can push through to a point.
A good public education system cannot depend on martyrs and heroes.
The work has to be rewarding and sustainable for typical educated care and humans.
We have to feel like the work is valued and like we can afford to stay and pour ourselves into it for 30 plus years.
The future is bright.
but only if we align our spending with our values. We must invest now and continuously
and people to build their careers protecting and preserving our precious state resources,
including our children, for sustainable yield, as our Constitution says we must.
Please support efforts to reinstate divine contributions. I particularly like the way
Is there anyone else in the room or online who would like to testify to HB 78 today?
Hearing and seeing none at this time I will close public testimony
Representative cop and staff
representative cop thank you for joining us. Does anyone have any questions for rep cop?
Rep cop, one of the interesting things about this discussion seems to be actuarial analysis done
the neutral kind of fiduciary interest of the state and then actuarial analysis
may be done by this other group who seems to be against pensions for public
employees. Can you tell the committee what do you think is behind the
differences in those analyses and what those differences are to your
Thank you, Chair Borkman, for the record.
My name is Chuck Cobb, House Representative for District 10,
and the Bill Facilitator for House Finance Committee
on House Bill 78.
That is a great question, chair B
In the case of the Reason Foundation, they are not an actuarial firm, so any actuarial
modeling they would do would be as a result of working with another entity that would
be an actuary, but that is not expertise that they personally bring.
financial services industries that make money off annuities, which there's no
no wrong per se in that at all. It's just that that's the motivation you don't make
money of employees in a pension system. You make
money Off employees and a 401k by selling them an insurance policy when they go to retire saying
if you want a guaranteed stream of income.
for x number of dollars for X number
of years, I'll sell you an insurance policy that does that.
Those are entities that control groups like the Reason Foundation.
The state's actuary, the actuary that works for the state has one duty
to keep the State of Alaska out of pension liability trouble.
And what they have testified is that this bill
in their 25-year modeling does not show any potential
any realistic potential to introduce new liability to the system. They have said that several times.
They model for ups and downs in the markets, significant market corrections,
taking into account events like 2008. That's what the state's
actuary is saying. The third actuary you mentioned would be for proponents.
And you could certainly say that those that are under contract
who support a view could in fact come back with a position
to be supportive of the view, much like the Reason Foundation.
So there are actuaries that have been on contract
who certainly support, a review of a return to the pension,
and those, that had been contracted with by Reason
to look at stopping that from occurring.
Actuarial voice that we can trust as a state are the people that stand to lose their jobs or get sued by the state
Which we have shown we will do we sued Mercer when they let us in the ditch
And they're very motivated to make sure that our
Liability scenario that
We experienced in their early 2000s after bad advice for Mercer is never repeated
And our actuaries that work for us that worked for the State are saying
that this plan is nothing like the legacy pension,
that the safeguards in it,
because it reacts live to the market,
make it highly unlikely
that any new future liability will be introduced
to this state and they're modeling
and that they testify it to it very eloquently.
So you heard from the reason earlier,
they gave their range of future liabilities,
that see that is not supported by our own state actuary.
Thank you very much rep cup as we think about the overall state budget and cash flow from a year-to-year position
Many people including some here who testified today are concerned about
Availability of cash to pay permanent fund dividends as well as paved roads and fun schools and corrections and all the things that our state government does
on a your to your basis with cashflow as
We look at
At this model, compared to our current practice of letters of agreement,
MOUs, overtime pay, if HB 78 were to become law,
what effect, according to the actuarial analysis done by the state,
really the neutral party to protect state finances, what affect would this bill have on the State's cash flow?
This bill would unquestionably be net revenue positive.
That is based on the hard numbers of the cost per year to the state that the actuary says this will run.
As compared to cost of what we're doing now, we know
This year, in the fiscal year we're in, we are on track to exceed $200 million in premium pay.
You heard Ms. Heidi Dragus testify to some of the premium
pay and letters of agreement issues, but our own administration has put together an exhaustive
report of how that has increased from $80 million and FY20.
to $149 million in FY 25 and we're only halfway through FY 26 and were already way past $112 million.
So it's going up on an exponential curve and the drivers of that are vacancies, staffing shortages, callouts, and people basically not getting days off.
They're just working around the clock to keep the wheels on, whether it your plow truck guys, DOT people, or your public safety people.
That's what it takes and that's we're doing right now.
The, just to recap what our actuaries project is a cost in the $80 to $90 million a year range would be the total state investment in this plan.
What we're paying now is in several hundreds of millions of dollars a
year, not only in premium pay, but in errors and emissions, the fines,
a track for and and put in for reimbursements from federal grant programs that are in the hundreds of millions of dollars and
Then finally we are not recognizing any savings by reducing the churn
Because we're taking highly skilled operational people off the line keeping them constantly in a training mode
And then to do the line job, you got to work in 16 hours a day, because they're
training for eight because the employee churn is not stopping.
And we heard from the Department of Law just a few days ago in front of the, the
finance subcommittee that their number one problem is they don't have
any middle-level managers attorneys to mentor the new ones.
They got all kinds of prosecutors in that two to three, four-year range,
and then they have some up close to 20 years,
but they had a huge hollowing out of their agency
that they're wrestling with because they can't keep them there,
and we're seeing that in pretty much every agency and state government.
Thank you very much, RepCop. Other questions from committee members?
Hearing and seeing none
Thank you again at this time. We will set your house bill 78 aside for further consideration at our next meeting on Friday
We'll take a brief at ease while we set up for the next bill
Back on the record now, it's 2.34 p.m. here in Belts room 105 the Thomas Stewart building up next on our agenda today is Senate bill 198
First hers retirement and medical eligibility
This is our first hearing on The bill with us today to present the bill. We have the honorable senator James Kauffman and his staff
the trusty and matorkelson
Welcome to Senate labor and commerce. Please state your names for the Record and begin your presentation of the Bill
Thank you chair Borkman
Members of the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee for the record James Kaufman Senate District F
And
The bill before us today addresses two issues with medical benefits are retired
Our defined contribution employees receive when they retire
Our current system lacks an important element of flexibility penalizing employees who have dedicated their career to public
service. The specifics of this bill mirror the March 2025
recommendations of the Alaska Retirement Management Board.
You'll find there two resolutions in your bill package.
Specifically, this Bill applies to public employees in
PERS tier 4 and teachers in TERS Tier 3 or TRS tier 3.
These are employees who were hired beginning July 2006.
For some background, when an eligible defined contribution employee retires,
they can access the retiree major medical insurance plan and health reimbursement
arrangements, sometimes referred to as an HRA.
To do so, current statute requires they work 30 years and or 25 years,
respectively, of they are a peace officer or firefighter.
Alternatively, if an employee reaches Medicare age after working for 10 years
they qualify for the benefits.
The funds that support both the PERS and TERS defined contribution health care plans are overfunded.
PERs is currently at 121 percent and tERS is at 136 percent.
Based on recent actuarial analysis, the arm board found that the years of service required
could be reduced while keeping the funds over funded.
taking one of the options recommended by the arm board SB 198 reduces the years of
service required by five years. Public employees and teachers would work for
25 years, peace officers firefighters work
for 20 years to be eligible for health care benefits. Employee contributions
are slightly increased and the surplus more than covers the new liability
considering the current state of overfunding.
In this way, we're able to improve our health care offer to define contribution employees without jeopardizing the solvency of the funds.
You can find the arm boards full actuarial analysis in the packet.
Thank you, Mr. President.
First, I want to thank you for bringing this forward
because it certainly looks like it's an improvement
for the current defined contribution plan.
But I'll tell you I'm really hopeful
that the defined benefit plan will be returned.
But in the meantime, my question to you is that
Given that the defined contribution plans are intended to accommodate non-linear career paths,
how does a requirement for continued service in the final year align with the original purpose of a defined contributions system?
And I hope my question is clear.
I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking.
The core of this bill is to basically remove a snag that keeps people from being able to have more flexibility getting in.
So I'm not sure if you're asking about that flexibility element or amending the 12 month requirement.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman's going to help with the question that I had.
Thank You.
I think to further on the question,
because I have a similar question is if DC plans
are designed to help people, and if it is attractive
for them to move to different careers,
why was it necessary under the old plan
that someone retired directly from the plan
in order to receive the health benefit?
I can't.
speak to why they had that but in this case what we're trying to do is remove
that 12-month requirement to provide that flexibility. That's kind of the heart of
the bill. Yep. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Thank
you through the chair and perhaps as we continue to discuss and present we
or get back with you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You're welcome.
Just to thank you through the chair to continue just a little bit. So SB 198 removes the 12 month
requirement and that change will give flexibility. Oh, I'm sorry,
I skipped a beat here.
return a minute to the current statute to set this up, current law requires defined
contribution employees who have met their years of service to retire directly into the
benefit plan. It further requires that they work for the 12 months immediately before
they retire. The 12 month requirement imposes unnecessary rigidity. For instance, if somebody
has met the requirements, but they can go do something else and not have to come back
again for 12 months to get back into eligibility for the system.
So if they're not ready to enroll in the retirement health plan, they are forced to
delay retirement, leave and then come back for that 12 month.
There's no option for defined contribution employees to strategically defer taking their
health benefits.
And a little personal story with myself, I retired from BP.
but I'm able to defer that and so then when I was hired as a legislator and we
have a less care so I'll be able do that but still that retirement benefit is
still there should I decide not to do this or should the voters decide.
So, I kind of have a personal understanding of the catch 22 that was here.
So SB 198 removes the 12 month requirement, change gives needed flexibility.
So in closing, since no members have yet reached that 25 or 30 year eligibility threshold,
we're at a good point in time in the system to make changes.
SB 198 makes important improvements to the healthcare plan to better serve the employees who have dedicated their career.
And that, my chief of staff, Emma Torkelson, is here to provide additional details in her section reading.
Thank you, Chair Bjorkman, for the record, Emma Torkelson, staff to Senator Kauffman.
So I'll take you through the sectional, it's a little repetitive, so I've kind of condensed it here.
Hopefully, we'll be understandable.
Sections one and four make changes to the retirement health benefit statutes for
defined contribution teachers in Title 14 and public employees, including firefighters and.
peace officers in Title 39.
They remove the requirement to retire directly into their health benefits after working the
preceding 12 months.
It also reduces the years of service required to qualify for these benefits.
Teachers and public employees will qualify in 25 years, down from 30, and peace
officers and firefighters will
qualify after 20 years down
from 25.
Note that if any defined contribution employee reaches retirement age after serving 10 years, they will still have to meet that 12-month requirement.
Sections 2 and 5 amend the premium cost subsidies for Medicare eligible retired teachers and public employees based on the changes in sections 1 and 4.
And then finally, section three amends the HRA account procedures so
that the defined contribution teachers and public employees returning to work after a gap will have the yearly interest instead of inflation credited to their existing H.R.A. account.
The arm board will set that interest rate based on yearly market performance.
And finally the last section establishes an effective date of, I believe, July 1,
2026.
July 1st, 2026.
I'll make a couple quick notes on sections three and five,
the subsidies for the health care premiums.
When we were drafting this bill, these sections we thought were conforming changes to the reduction in the years of service.
However, the arm board intentionally did not recommend changes
to those subsidies as they have an actuarial impact that was not studied.
So in a future version of the bill we'll actually ask if we can remove those based on the recommendations of
the armbord.
Additionally, after we introduced this bill last session, the arm board made a
few further recommendations in resolutions for changes to this health
care benefit system for defined contribution. We're still reviewing those
recommendations, so we're not prepared to go into depth on them at this time, but
we would like to work with committee members after the hearing to see if
members would, if there's a desire to incorporate them in a future version of
Thank you, Chair Bjorkman. That's all I have. We do have the chair of the
arm board online to answer questions about the resolutions. And we should have a
couple folks from the Division of Retirement and Benefits who can answer
questions, about health of funds, and any other questions you have about how the
current system works. Thank You. Mr. Orkelson, thank you very much. Are there
It's nice to just sit in the quiet for a minute, isn't it?
I have a few questions.
So yes, I'm aware of additional recommendations
made by the arm board.
Chair Williams, if you could outline those
for the committee, as you would, and just talk
Why is this change before us in Senate Bill 198 beneficial as well as the other recommendations
made more recently by the on board and how do those recommendations work together to
make things better?
Yes, this is, Chair, can you hear me okay?
Five by five, sir.
Okay, excellent.
Bob Williams, chair of the Alaska Attorney Management Board, and what I will say is that the board
in 2025 tried to put a lot of committee time and some board time into thinking about what are
our best recommendations for some improvements to the design and contribution of retirement
2025-02, 2025-21, and 2025 dash 22.
And so, if you look at Resolution 2025, dash 02,
one of the things we noticed is there's really long requirements
to get to the medical benefit.
If you're a public employee or an educator,
you need to have 30 years of service.
And if you're police and fire, you have to have 25 years of service.
And that's a really, really long time.
And so this, we basically came up with a recommendation to reduce that.
We had our actuators look at it, review actuator look.
And we kind of in that resolution 20, 25, 02,
we came out with three options.
One was just make it 25.
that would still remain overfunded. Another option which this one is is make it 25 years for everyone but make
it 20 years from police and firefighters. That was still going to be the funding was going
to still be over 100%. The as was noted the the normal cost would increase slightly but still it
And 20 years for everyone had a cost to it that would have to be paid to keep it at 100% funded and then adjust normal costs.
And with PERS, it was a little over 38 million with TERS. It was under 10 million, but it came to a $50 million to kind of keep everything 100 percent funded.
That one doesn't have a chance because who has $60 million to pay for that.
So our resolution 2025-21 looks for a way, a funding mechanism through forfeited or highly
likely to be forfeiting HRA balances that could possibly pay forward.
20 years for police and firefighters and 25 years
for everyone else. And that was one of the options we recommended
to consider. I would say that they are
complimentary. Obviously you just want to do one
of them, but if we wanted to go to 20
years to everyone, our resolution 2025-21
And if you just wanted to very simple way where it's already overfunded, this bill, keeping
it at 25 years for everyone and 20 years from police and fire, is already funded.
The other comment I will make, I think there was a question earlier through the chair about
You know, prior employment requirement. Why do they have a requirement saying that if you had to retire directly from the plan I
I do not understand everything that went into setting this up back in
2006 when I talked to division retirement and benefits. I think there was a very strong focus on
making things as as
Tight as possible and ironclad as comfortable with their pass. No loophole
But I think after the passage of time, that requirement is kind of very rigid and arbitrary.
And people need some flexibility deciding when they're retiring.
And I'll just note that everyone that retires with a DC medical retirement, they have to
pay 100% of the premiums and the costs until medical, until their retirement eligible age,
and then it's secondary to Medicare.
So they're paying 100% of that premium.
If we remove that 12 month requirement
and if we reduce the year's of service requirement,
it will give people more flexibility
with how they use their HRA account.
Maybe they can retire at 62 and pay the premiums
for three years from their HRRA accounts
and than pay to reduce premiums
that are secondary Medicare,
but I think it just, we want to give
people flexibility.
and we want to make sure that they end up with access to the benefits they need.
But the last thing I will say is the arm board is very careful and hesitant when we make legislative
recommendations and humble. We we we don't do it very often. And we try to think of things that
And you explained it, we can hopefully get 80 of them to agree that it made sense.
And so we've been fairly careful and thoughtful in making these recommendations.
But we do believe those resolutions would improve the system.
Thank you.
Thank very much, Chair Williams.
Are there any questions from committee members?
I have one question, maybe Mr. Murray or Mr
Rumsberg online with the Division of Retirement and Benefits
could answer these questions. Mr Murray
or Mrs. Rimsberg, could you please tell the committee
and just provide us a little bit of education as to
the state of fund balances within the
retirement trusts and how you all feel about
of being able to support these changes over time.
Student Chair, Senator Bortman, this is Chris Murray for the record,
acting Chief Health Official for
the Alaska Division of Retirement and Benefits.
We do have our CFO, Christopher Novel, online as well.
He may be able to speak more specifically to the actual fund balances.
What I can say is that the funds, the trust funds are overfunded at this time.
But I believe that Christopher novel would likely be better to truly speak to
the specifics of your question if that's okay.
Mr. Murray, thank you for that direction.
Mr Novell, if you've heard the discussion
we just had with the question,
if could respond to that, please.
Thanks for the record.
This is Christopher Navell.
Chief Financial Officer for
the Division of Retirement and Benefit.
Chief Officer on Chris Murray is perfectly correct.
There is the health care funds are adequately funded.
but now I'm projected to be well-funded right through 2039.
So this is something that could be adequately carried
with this bill to answer the question.
Yes, very well.
Thank you so much.
Any further questions from committee members?
Senator Kaufman, thank you very much,
I appreciate you bringing this Bill forward.
absolutely willing to consider and entertain additional recommendations from the issues
brought forward by the retirement board. I'm happy to take a look at those as well. Certainly
this policy, whether or not an additional policy on defined benefit goes forward, there
will be a considerable amount of state employees that would still remain in the DC plan that
Appropriate that we consider this change and it certainly doesn't conflict with the bill that
We heard here during our first two-thirds of the hearing today. So I think I
Appreciate you bringing it forward. Thank you. Pleasure. Thanks
We will set this bill aside for consideration at a future meeting
The Senate Labor and Commerce Committee will meet again tomorrow
I'm sorry, not tomorrow, the day after tomorrow which would be Friday.
Where we will hear again House Bill 78, and
we'll have a hearing on Senate Bill 121, Health Insurance Allowable Charges.
As there is no further business before the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee today,
we are adjourned at 2.55 PM.