"Not a catastrophe."
That’s how Governor Dalrymple characterizes the end of the Legislative session, where the budget bill for the Public Employees Retirement System was not approved. Lawmakers left town with the bill still in limbo.
Dalrymple says the funding for PERS is a “continuing appropriation.”
"And that means they have revenue coming in every day from employee contributions," said Dalrymple. "They are allowed to operate on those funds day in and day out, without any special legislative appropriation."
But Dalrymple says there are questions about how far that goes. And he says there will likely be a request for an Attorney General’s opinion on that.
"Is it explicit enough that they (PERS) can do something like give a person a 3 percent raise or not," said Dalrymple. "I think the Attorney General is going to be the one who has to answer that."
The bill was hung up because House conferees wanted amendments dealing with the health insurance plan for state workers. The Senate conferees would not go along.