Hello NSP Retirees,
I wanted to reach out with a follow-up email regarding LB196. We've included all retirees because we feel it is important to share the details and full transparency of what we have been working on for active troopers and retirees. We understand the importance in this entire bill and how the change for it to get out of committee does not make a positive change for you as a retiree.
There are a few items I want to ensure you know. The bill was going to die in committee if we did not make the concession to only 10%. It was to the point that it was this change or nothing at all, so we agreed to the 10%. The committee members that originally voted "yes" understand how important this entire bill is to our active and retiree troopers. In fact, we all will be retired one day - so these items are still very important - mostly for you as a retiree, but one day we will also know the feeling.
As long as I am President of STAN, we will continue working on legislation with Senator Bostar and other senators who understand what you (we) are up against during retirement. If you have not followed Senator Bostar, he is one senator who understands, is willing, and will fight for us - he is very passionate about our issues. He knows that ensuring our retirees receive the COLA increase as well as spouses receiving benefits deserved are both vital to survival for many. At the end of the day - when the committee voted the only piece they would agree upon (with the Governor's Office involved) was that of the lower retirement rate - it was this piece or nothing. It was certainly not the way we wanted the bill to end up and we will keep at it to push for positive change for the retirement pieces.
Regardless of your STAN Membership status, we want to keep you all informed and up-to-date on these items that we are working on. The more involved we all are, the more we can accomplish.
As we have more details on this or any other topic, we will email again.
Sincerely,
James Estwick
STAN President
