MEA Legislative Agenda

I attended the MEA Government Relations committee meeting in Augusta today (3/7/09). Legislative Director Steve Crouse briefed us on the legislative agenda.

The only bill to have been heard and acted on by a committee is LD 83, an act to raise the state's contribution of retirees' health care premiums to 50%. It received a unanimous ought-to-pass recommendation from the committee -- who could argue against it? -- but in these times, I can't imagine it being funded. Nonetheless, if you'd like to contact your state rep about it, please do. Use this link.

Nothing very disturbing seems to have been submitted to the Legislature this year.* [Contrast that with the referenda on the ballot for next November.] Other bills submitted include proposals to:

• fairly apply the income tax by eliminating reductions of social security benefits
  
• exclude collectively bargained and job promotion increases from the earnable compensation limitation for retirement
• require state and local governments to make a plan for all employees to be paid a livable wage
• require the convening of a professional standards board
• establish a commission to study teachers' salaries
  
• provide collective bargaining protections for alternative organizational structure employees
• restore the right of public employees to engage in collective bargaining
  
• provide transparency and protection for public employees in the laws governing the Maine Public Employees Retirement System (MePERS)
  
• correct inequities for community college employees in MePERS.
  

I can't claim to know what half of those bills refer to, but if you want to know more about one (or more) of them, you can research it on the Legislature's website. Follow this link.

*See the more recent post "Legislative Agenda Redux" for another view.