Legislation reducing both the retirement and health benefits for state workers " one of the final pieces of the tax and budget deal agreed to by lawmakers " was approved by the Legislature Thursday night.
The changes in SB427 will apply only to new state workers hired after the first of the year. Existing employees won't suffer any reduction in their benefits beyond what the Public Employees Benefits Program has already approved.
On the retirement side, SB427 will slow the rate at which state workers earn retirement. They will get 2.5 percent of their average pay per year instead of 2.67 percent. In addition, workers will have to be at least 62 years old to retire without penalty unless they have 30 years service. Police/fire retirees also would have to wait longer to retire with full benefits.
The changes to the benefits package are basically those adopted by the PEBP board. They increase the deductible to $750 and eliminate a wellness program which allowed workers to cut their deductible to as little as $250 a year.
The changes also eliminate the subsidy for workers who retire with less than 15 years service.
But lawmakers avoided the deeper cuts called for by the SAGE Commission, which would have cut state support for health premiums from 90 percent to 75 percent, eliminated the subsidy for Medicare eligible retirees and cut the subsidy for non-Medicare retirees in half over the biennium.
That decision required lawmakers add $158.5 million back into the governor's proposed budget.
The vote was unanimous in the Assembly and 19-2 in the Senate with Bob Coffin and Maggie Carlton of Las Vegas voting no.
Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, agreed to back the tax package and the budget provided the benefits reform package was approved and a study of Nevada's tax and revenue system ordered during the coming biennium. Passage of the reform package leaves only the tax study left to complete the budget deal.