Oklahoma House members shoot down a bill amendment to give retired firefighters a cost-of-living adjustment.
The House passed a bill to require the state firefighters pension board to use IRS guidelines in evaluating rollovers. Rep. Mike Brown attempted to amend the bill to give retired firefighters a cost-of-living adjustment.
"That is those retirees' retirement money, and wouldn't you agree that we need to be paying some of these retirees some of that money back that haven't had a COLA in many years?" Brown said.
The amendment was ruled not germane — irrelevant to the bill’s subject, so it could not be considered. Minority Leader Scott Inman proposed a work-around.
"Suspend the House rules for the purposes of germaneness so that we can take up the 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment for our retired firefighters," Inman said.
House members voted down Inman’s proposal. The bill passed without the amendment, meaning retired firefighters will go another year without an increase in pension payments.
"I don't think that it's responsible on the part of this body, the governor, whoever, to hand out tens of thousands of dollars in raises to heads of agencies, to heads of the state, and yet refuse to give a COLA to those that haven't had one in years," Brown said.
