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Additional workers' comp reforms could help build up reserves

Bill Weaver, President and CEO of Canyon Creek Cabinet Company, has an op-ed in the Everett Herald about why workers’ compensation reforms passed by the Senate earlier this year are a good idea. As he writes, “continued workers’ compensation reform is a key element of our state’s economic competitiveness.” Further, To compete worldwide, we depend […]

Why workers' comp benefits paid are the best indicator of system costs

As Dick noted on Wednesday, his column this week “debunks the charge that [business climate ranking] studies are bunk.” He also linked to the Washington Roundtable’s Benchmarks for a Better Washington, which look at how Washington does (compared to other states) on measures of innovation, quality of life, and business costs. Today, David Groves of […]

Paid sick leave mandates banned as often as adopted

An article in Stateline notes that New York City has joined the handful of jurisdictions that require employers to provide paid sick leave for their employees. The article highlights the controversial nature of such mandates, which are in effect in San Francisco, Washington DC, Connecticut and Seattle. Portland adopted paid sick leave in March; it […]

State Supreme Court will hear public pension gain sharing case

According to the Department of Retirement Systems (DRS), the state Supreme Court will hear the appeal in the gain sharing case. The court may also hear the case regarding public pension automatic cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs). Gain sharing was established in 1998. Under the program, extraordinary investment returns were used to enhance retirement benefits for certain […]

Epstein on the long-term consequences of paid sick leave

In a good column today, law professor Richard Epstein writes about paid sick leave mandates: The unintended consequence of paid-sick leave legislation, whether in New York City or elsewhere, will be to block the creation of new jobs by limiting the deals that employers and employees are lawfully allowed to make with each other. . […]

May Washington's public pension system never be this interesting . . .

“Pensions are complicated, and when they are not causing huge problems, they are boring.” I’ve mentioned that Josh Barro line before, and I probably will again, because it’s pure truth. These days, pensions are certainly not boring, as the situation in Illinois illustrates spectacularly. Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the state with securities […]

More on why state pension reforms are coming

Alicia Munnell, the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, nicely frames the public pension problem in a blog post today: Public plans around the world cannot sustain today’s level of benefits in the face of increased life expectancy, two financial crises in a decade, and low expected investment returns.  Expensive provisions […]

Public pensions and investment returns

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing on HB 1899, which would allow first class cities to enter into agreements with the State Investment Board (SIB) allowing the SIB to “assume the duties of investing the retirement funds of the first class cities’ retirement systems.” The only first class cities with their own […]

Oregon study on workers' comp — Washington jumps in the rankings

Today the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services released the full 2012 Workers’ Compensation Premium Rate Ranking Study. (A summary was released in October.) The study is done every two years and ranks Oregon’s workers’ comp premium rates against those in other states. We have described the problems with using the Oregon study as […]

Workers' comp, cumulative trauma, and pro sports

Over the weekend, there was an article in the LA Times about athletes and workers’ compensation in California. (I wrote about this issue in August.) All states allow professional athletes to claim workers’ compensation payments for specific job-related injuries — such as a busted knee, torn tendon or ruptured spinal disc — that happened within […]