Opinion ID: 2575877
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: H.B. 213: An Amendment to the Program

Text: ¶ 8 Beginning in 2003, the Legislature expressed increasing concern with escalating health insurance costs facing the State under the Program. In a short span of five years, the costs to the State for already retired employees nearly doubled. Moreover, the State anticipated an additional increase in the next ten years of more than 300%. The Legislature responded to these concerns by modifying the Program in 2005 with H.B. 213. In essence, this modification returns to the 1983-2004 statutory scheme, although not the actual practice, which allowed only 75% of the unused sick leave to be redeemed for medical and life insurance. Under H.B. 213, the statutory scheme again limits the use of the other 25%: banked sick leave falls into one of two new programs, depending upon when the employee banked the sick leave hours. ¶ 9 Program I applies to all sick leave accrued prior to January 1, 2006, and implements a gradual, five-year phase-out of the guaranteed continuing medical and life insurance benefits (and the corresponding 480-hour automatic reduction of unused sick leave) that had been guaranteed under the original Program. Program I also eliminates the original Program's provision permitting employees to cash-out up to 25% of their unused sick leave and instead mandates that 25% be contributed to the employee's 401(k). Plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of the Program I modifications as substantially reducing the value of what they believe to be a vested right to use all 100% of banked sick leave in exchange for post-retirement medical and life insurance at the rate of eight hours of leave to one month of insurance coverage. ¶ 10 Program II, on the other hand, applies to all unused sick leave hours accrued after January 1, 2006. There is no dispute between the parties that the State may implement program changes with prospective effects. We find nothing erroneous in that agreement, and as a result, we need not address the provisions of H.B. 213 that apply to Program II.