I’m Senator John Snow and about two weeks ago I opened the law enforcement officer 25 year retirement plan and survey on my website at www.senatorsnow.com The plan detailed the cumulative thinking and agreement of representatives from the law enforcement officers community, the league of municipalities, my staff here at the legislature, and me. In the intervening two weeks we have had literally thousands of law enforcement officers from all over North Carolina take the survey and almost as many make comments about it. My office has fielded hundreds of phone calls and emails from law enforcement officers about questions they have had about the proposal.

From this process I feel that I have learned a lot more about what the law enforcement officers working the daily beat actually want from a 25 year retirement program. Just as importantly I now better understand what things you are not willing to give up in order to have a 25 year retirement program. Additionally, your comments clearly indicate that you now better understand the financial and political challenges that we will have to negotiate in order to achieve a 25 year retirement. In my view this survey and your active participation in it has been absolutely critical to our future discussions about getting law enforcement officers a 25 year retirement.

I promised you once the survey closed and I had an opportunity to talk with the people which represent you here in Raleigh that I would get back with you about what is going to happen next. I’m here today to tell you about what is going to happen next. On Thursday July 12, 2007 I sat down with representatives from two of the law enforcement representative organizations – the FOP and the NC Sheriff’s Association. Not all of the representatives from the different organizations were in the room but I was told that they had all met earlier in the week to discuss the plan and what their action would be in the event that we introduced the bill in the Senate.

It was made clear to me in this meeting that if I introduced the plan in the Senate that your representatives would oppose the plan. This, of course, would make passing this bill extraordinarily difficult if not fully impossible. Moreover, the results of the survey were such that I could not use it to over ride their arguments and show the members of the Senate that this is a plan that an overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers want. In short, because of this conversation, we will not be proceeding on with this plan or any other plan during this long session of the General Assembly.

In return for not proceeding forward with this plan or any other plan during this session I have asked for the different law enforcement officer groups to begin working with the league of municipalities on developing some type of proposal that will work for both groups on the bill. The short session of the General Assembly should begin in May of 2008. At this time I hope that we can move forward with a bill that has received plenty of thought and attention from these groups and will be something that both can support. I promise you that I will keep you up to speed with the discussions of these groups through the internet. Moreover my staff will be available to your representatives and the league of municipalities to provide them with all of the data and support that they need to have a productive and full discussion.

However, one thing that we have learned in this process is that in order to get a 25 year retirement Law Enforcement Officers have to be willing to give up their special separation allowance. This is the one bargaining chip that is absolutely vital to brining the league of municipalities to the table. Whether or not you are willing to give this up is entirely up to you. Only you can know whether getting out of law enforcement 5 years earlier is worth the money you give up by doing so. If you would rather have the money than have the additional 5 years then you need to let the people who lobby for you down here know that. Conversely if you would rather have the five years rather than the money you need to let your representatives here in Raleigh know that as well. Either way I will work as hard as I can for you to get a 25 year retirement. And I hope that through putting up this survey and trying to be responsive to you that you know that this promise is more than the typical political rhetoric we hear before November of an election year.

One of the benefits of this survey is that you have forced the people who lobby for you to think more creatively about this problem and ways in which to solve it. Additionally opposing sides are now sitting down at the table and are actively working together. In the 25 years since Law Enforcement Officers have tried to get a 25 year retirement there has been very little conversation between these two groups. Your pressure is helping to make these conversations happen. While the legislative process is undoubtedly slow we have to consider this progress.

Thank you for your service to North Carolina.