Published: March 09, 2008 10:42 pm      

Resolution for teacher pensions expected

CHARLESTON — Except for an end-of-the-week dustup over the teachers retirement plans, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin views the legislative session as generally smooth and efficient.

And even the dispute over how best to transfer the active 19,100 teachers into the old retirement system should be resolved in a few days, Tomblin predicted Saturday night after his gavel fell in the Senate.

“I think it went very smooth,” he said. “We got most of the things done. The things we set out to do, we got accomplished.”

A major hassle split the Legislature when both the House and Senate produced rival and glaringly disparate plans for letting teachers return to the old pension system.

Many who were locked into the newer, 401(k)-style plan found their investments had failed them, and wanted to get back to the older one.

Gov. Joe Manchin agreed, but from that point on, his plan was stretched by both houses, and the two sides couldn’t come together before midnight Saturday.

Manchin has promised to bring in financial experts today to provide the precise numbers before any agreement is forged.

A House version called for the state to put up $78 million to make the transfer work, while the Senate’s plan figured $20 million is needed. Manchin recoiled from both figures, and vowed to come up with an alternate, once the actuaries arrive with the critical figures.

Tomblin agreed this is the best route to go.

“What happened, we just had conflicting reports,” he said. “It was the weekend. We could not get actuaries to get the kind of numbers we needed. The thing we don’t want to do, as far as we’ve done with our retirement system, we certainly don’t want to go back the other way, the way we did for the past 20 years. We’ll have the numbers next week. Both sides will look at it.”

Tomblin considered the collapse in negotiations on the teacher retirement the key disappointment to him in this session.

“It was just one of those things where the two houses and the governor were so far apart,” he said. “You can’t just call over to an office and get an answer on something like this. Actuaries actually run reports and by the time you get an answer, it takes a day or two to get those figures back to you.”

And Tomblin, like other experienced lawmakers, wasn’t about to make a rush to judgment.

“It was one of those things, after most of us have been burned before by retirement systems, we’re very cautious about getting into that situation again,” the Senate president said.

Tomblin felt the revised drunken driving statute, a key goal of Sen. Dan Foster, D-Kanawha, was one of the shinier moments in the long legislative session.

Historic by nature, it creates an “aggravated DUI” with a benchmark of a .15 or higher blood alcohol content with harsher penalties, allows first-time offenders to cut their license suspension in half by using Interlocks to detect alcohol before a car can start, and scraps the mandatory, 24-hour jail time for first offenses so counties and cities don’t get double-billed for per diem costs at regional jails.

“Several bills were good bills, and that was one of them,” Tomblin, D-Logan, said.

Tomblin saluted the efforts of Judiciary Chairman Jeffrey Kessler, D-Marshall, to get the measure out of the Senate and through the House of Delegates.

“Sen. Kessler did a very good job working that bill,” he added.

From a fiscal standpoint, Tomblin also was pleased to see some cash still in hand to spend.

“We’ve gone through a budget session this week, and we’re not all that far apart,” he said. “We’ve not spent all the money yet. Once we figure out how much all the bills we’ve passed in the last few days are going to cost, I think we will have a little bit of money left there to set aside for future needs.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com