(Letter to the Editor - Graphic Illustration/MetroCreativeConnection)

The 2023 regular session of the West Virginia Legislature ended at midnight Saturday, with many of the priorities set by Republican leaders, though public employee retirees are left behind.

House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, wondered Saturday whether the wins being touted by the governor and Republican legislative leadership will be considered wins by state residents and public employees.

“There’s going to be a lot of talk about the income tax reduction,” Skaff said. “Was that the right way to spend all that surplus money or not? We still have a lot of priorities out there that are left unaddressed. A lot of people hated to see the PEIA increase at 26% when we had a surplus. We think we could have offset that. That was disappointing.”

PEIA retirees, when you vote in November, remember these increases in premiums, co-pay, deductible and out-of-pocket expenses that will reduce our pension income even more as the increases to PEIA (healthcare) costs go into effect.

This same legislative leadership felt retirees weren’t in need of a COLA increase to our pensions to help offset these increases to us, while this same leadership felt they needed to increase their wages, if you didn’t know, too. Legislators receive additional reimbursements. They are compensated for mileage, meals, hotels and other amenities for 60 days of the session. If legislators don’t feel that they can afford to be a legislator with their current salaries in addition to reimbursements, then they should resign and be replaced with individuals that understand the real purpose they are elected — to represent their constituents, not partisan politics and to benefit the wealthy and out-of-state corporations. They made sure to give themselves pay raises. They increased the healthcare costs for public employee retirees. Our pensions are “frozen” from an COLA increase, meaning retirees go for years upon years without any COLA increases.

COLA or any other pension increases have to be passed by the legislature, even though it is our retirement funds that are being invested. Our spending for necessities are further eroded by the cost of purchases that increase for our prescriptions doctors and hospital visits, leaving retirees with less money to provide a basic lifestyle (a living wage) due to no built-in COLA increase for our pension as there is for other retirees.

Our healthcare will be increased by 26% along with other costs to maintain our basic necessities — costs that are the same to us as you legislators. Yet giving tax cuts to out-of-state corporations, the wealthy and yourself, even when a surplus was available — that should have included PEIA retirees.

Jerry L. Payne

Ripley