WEA seeks two benefits for one

The Washington Education Association has sued the state, asking the courts to throw out the "gainsharing" law just signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

A lawsuit by the teachers' union might have been expected, since an employee benefit was being taken away and replaced by a cheaper one. What's unexpected — and unacceptable — is that the lawsuit asserts a right to both benefits.

The point of taking away gainsharing was that it was going to cost the taxpayers billions, and that the Legislature had been ignorant of these billions when it passed the plan in 1998. Gainsharing was a benefit nobody else had. It was a new thing, though really it was not so complicated, and legislators might have understood it had they paused to think about it.

Start with an ordinary pension, a fixed amount of dollars per month. The money for a pension comes from a fund invested in stocks and bonds. Any growth or shrinkage in the fund affects whoever is paying into it: The more the fund grows, the less the employer (or employee) needs to pay in. The amount paid out in pensions is the same.

Gainsharing changes that. It says that if the fund goes up in value a lot over several years, the pension benefit is increased. The formula doesn't work in reverse: If the fund goes down a lot, the benefit is not decreased.

This imbalance means gainsharing is not free. In fact, over the decades its cost to taxpayers (most of whom don't have gainsharing) rises into the billions.

Once a pension benefit has been promised, the general rule is that it cannot be taken away from the individuals to whom it was promised. In enacting gainsharing, the Legislature said it was not a promise, and reserved the right to take it away — which is what it just did. The WEA argues in its lawsuit that the state can't do that, and that gainsharing is theirs to keep.

The new law replaces gainsharing with a more generous formula for retiring early. The law says that if a court lets retirees keep gainsharing, they don't get the replacement benefit. It's one or the other.

The WEA is asking King County Superior Court to give it both — which was never the Legislature's or the governor's intention. The argument is fanciful and should be rejected.