We believe that Senate Bill 40 and Assembly Bill A2 currently being studied
by the Legislature should be opposed.
To summarize our position: “We urge the Governor and the State
Legislature to take no action which will result in the reduction of retirement
and health benefits to professional librarians and other library workers
who either currently receive benefits or who are currently enrolled in
the current system.” Our membership believes that pension and health
benefits are explicitly part of the employment bond between government
and its employees.” The library community recognizes that reforms
must be made to keep the system solvent for our members. We hope that
these changes will not be detrimental to career public employees or those
with the least ability to afford these changes.
We further believe that strong health care benefits and a viable pension
system are essential in attracting new employees for careers in library
service.
In addition we support the principal of collective bargaining for public
employees in the areas of salaries and benefits.
These two bills violate these principles.
In addition, we oppose the recommendations developed by the Joint Legislative
Committee on public Employee Benefits Reform in the following areas.
1. We are concerned about charging members a portion of health benefit
costs. Health benefits are extremely important to our members. Many individuals
may accept jobs at lower wages because of the health benefits package.
This becomes the deciding factor in our organizations being able to attract
and keep a qualified work force.
Also limiting the availability of health care programs to part-time workers
is extremely difficult for many of our members. Long term part-time workers
should be compensated with health benefits. A specific number of hours
must be established for this benefit.
Currently, we are aware of members who now work 34 hours a week. Public
employers will not give them the additional hour which would make them
full time so they can avoid paying benefits. We are also aware of people
who must work two or more part-time jobs and still do not receive benefits.
Part-time employees need access to affordable health care.
2. Providing health benefits must be a priority in any benefits package
for employees. We are concerned that in the future, if an employee does
not need health benefits, they may be given preferential consideration
over a candidate who needs them. The need for health benefits should never
be a test for employment.
3. We are also extremely concerned about a proposal to limit part-time
employees from receiving pension credit and health benefits. Because of
the number of hours which they must be open to serve the public, libraries
frequently employ more part-time workers than any other part of local government.
Part-time workers are an integral part of the staff structure of all public
libraries. Their pension credit is an extremely important work incentive.
We, therefore, oppose the creation of a 401 (K) program for part-time workers.
This would severely limit the long-term career options of our members.
In the course of their careers library employees frequently change status
from full time employees to part-time employees or vice versa. Many times
library employees may start as full time workers but family obligations
then require that they become part-time. Having them in different pension
systems will be very detrimental. We believe these workers need to be in
the same system throughout their careers.
4. We support retaining the current pension benefits calculations on the
average of the final three years instead of five as presented in the
report. The final three year average is the standard used by most other
public employee systems. If implemented this change would reduce pension
benefits for thousands of library employees.
We do, however, believe that the current enrollment threshold of $1500
is too low and does not reflect the true reality of part-time employment.
Many libraries do employ students as library pages. Most of these students
make the $1500 limit but they are not truly pursuing a career at the library.
They may be working for only a year or two before going to college or pursuing
other career opportunities. This $1500 threshold can be raised to reflect
the difference between short term and long term workers.
