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CSA Says Goodbye, Thank You to Outgoing Supervisors 
The news about the state fiscal situation was predictably grim this week when two incoming state Senators told county supervisors about developments at the legislature. Senator Sylvia Allen (R-5) told the small county caucus that while the upcoming session would be one of the most challenging in Arizona history, she remained "optimistic." Senator Allen said the legislature contains a "good group of people on both sides of the aisle" and that tackling the state budget deficit would require concessions from all sides. Senator Allen told counties that the legislature would be looking to reduce regulation and "if there are things that your counties do now that are overly burdensome the legislature should lift those burdens to help you operate more efficiently."
 Senator-elect John Nelson (R-12) continued the bad news, saying the state faces "severe financial problems," but he commended counties for being "light years ahead of the state in dealing with the downturn." Mr. Nelson reported that Senate President Bob Burns (R-9) has proposed dealing with the budget before hearing other bills, but the House has not yet decided on a similar approach. He said that a bi-partisan effort to fix the budget was required, and that "we must be collegial, and work as a team." Senator-elect Nelson will chair the new Natural Resources, Infrastructure and Public Debt committee, which will deal with a wide range of issues including water, land use, transportation, and financing. Mr. Nelson discussed the requests submitted from local governments and the Department of Transportation for federal stimulus funds, and said he planned to continue to be engaged in that discussion. Jim Hacking, Administrator of the Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS), gave the annual end of the year briefing to the fund's stakeholders about returns for fiscal year 2008 and employer contribution rates for 2009. PSPRS is made up of the three retirement systems, separate from the Arizona State Retirement System: the Public Safety Retirement System (PSRS), the Corrections Officers Retirement Plan (CORP) and the Elected Officials Retirement Plan (EORP). While CORP and EORP may face some minor increases, most employers in PSRS are facing reduced contribution rates - good news when many local governments are facing deficits and trimming costs where they can. Hacking said, "Out of 229 employers, only 29 are seeing any type of increase and of those 29, six are seeing an increase of one-tenth of one percent. The other increases are a result of a unique circumstance in each instance: an employee retiring and not being replaced, or something of that nature will cause a contribution rate to increase." An employee retirement without a replacement might cause a contribution increase because that employee would then be drawing from the retirement account, and funds to cover the draw would have to be raised by increasing contributions for other employees. One of the reasons for the reduced contribution rates this year is the methodology used for calculating rates. " We looked at the last seven years and 2001 just dropped off. Basically, we're not counting the market downturn in 2001, and we've yet to calculate 2008's market performance so we're cutting out a bad performing year and won't replace it until next year," Hacking explained. Click for a copy of PSPRS' 2008 Annual Report or a list of contribution rates. The National Association of Counties (NACo) has released its key legislative priorities for 2009. The six priorities address unfunded mandates, economic stimulus, health reform, energy policy, taxation and transportation. They reflect NACo's continuing efforts to Restore the Partnership, with the purpose of strengthening the relationships among local, state and national governments. Click here for more information.
Visit the CSA Calendar of Events at www.countysupervisors.org/calendar. |
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County Supervisors Association of Arizona
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