Put this out to our folks to see what we can get.  We will also reach out to the coalition so that they too have the opportunity to get on the field.  I don’t know how you want to do it (first come first served) but if we have a big response we obviously need to be “fair” as possible.  Kind of a short turnaround time so as soon and you can get me the names that would be great.  I think they (Cards) are looking for names by the 11^th of August.   This is volunteer gig and they cannot be assigned to work the game.  We are working to get a secure room so that during the game they can secure their equipment.

 Please contact Justin Harris or Julie Reed if you are interesting in volunteering for this event.

IACP Policy & Background (PDFs for Download):

IACP – Concepts and Issues Social Media Paper

IACP – Social Media Policy

IACP- Social Media Model Policy Aug 2010

****

OTHER ADVICE:

FACEBOOK CHECK IN ADVICE

What behavioral factors may be influencing this disturbing surge — and, specifically, what can you do right now to best avoid becoming one of the grim statistics?

We consulted three prominent trainers with Force Science credentials for their recommendations. Here’s their compendium of proactive safety measures you can follow immediately, at no cost, and with no complicated training to protect yourself and fellow officers. It’s a no-excuses list, highly appropriate for roll-call reinforcement.

Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute and the foremost researcher of the human dynamics involved in deadly encounters.

“From an overview of shootings this year, it’s possible to identify at least some fundamental elements of officer safety that officers have disregarded, resulting in their being caught by surprise in untenable positions by offenders who wanted to kill them,” Lewinski notes. “You don’t need to be paranoid to survive on the street, but you do need to build certain critical basics of caution into your repertoire that you simply do not deviate from in any of your contacts.”

Respect the Speed of Attack

“The average suspect can present a gun — from a pocket, from a waistband, from a vehicle console, from his side, from under his body — and fire in any direction in just one-quarter of a second. That’s faster than the average officer can shoot, even if his weapon is on target, his finger is on the trigger, and he has already decided to fire. That’s because of the time it takes to mentally process and impel a reaction to the suspect’s action.”

He cites cases earlier this year in which suspects in less than a second were able to gun officers down, and in one confrontation two officers standing in close proximity apparently were shot in that brief flicker of time before either could respond.

“Remembering the potential lightning speed of an attack will affect all your behavior in approaching and conducting a suspect contact, from your use of cover to your tactical positioning to your verbal commands to your state of alertness,” Lewinski says.

“It doesn’t matter on a vehicle stop whether you approach from the driver’s side or the passenger side if you position yourself directly in front of the driver’s or passenger’s window and make yourself an easy target. You can be shot there before you can blink. Likewise, if you don’t monitor and control a suspect’s hands from the outset, you’re only worsening your reactive disadvantage.”

‘Read’ to Live

Force Science experiments in Northern Ireland have shown that officers who are best able to defend themselves generally are those who can accurately “read” suspect behavior that preshadows an attack.

“The most skilled officers, using their training and experience, tend to know where, when, and how a threat situation is going to unfold,” Lewinski says.

“If you’re attentive to physical movements and verbal cues, which are sometimes subtle, you often can detect and then defuse or suppress potential threats before you get caught behind the reactionary curve,” Lewinski says. “This requires continual assessment of your subjects and your surroundings, evaluating what they’re doing, what they’re saying, where and how they’re moving, and what’s going on around you.

“Before you can assert or maintain control, you have to be aware and not in a state of denial or inattention. Some officers, unfortunately, do not even acknowledge that something as blatant as an armed subject refusing to comply with commands is a strong threat cue.”

Avoid Verbal Traps

“We’ve all seen dash-cam videos of officers standing in the open and repeatedly yelling commands to ‘Drop the gun!’ at noncompliant, threatening offenders,” Lewinski says. “The officers are not using the deadly force that they’re legally justified in using, and they’re not doing anything else — like moving to cover or withdrawing — to gain a tactical advantage. These officers get caught in a repetitive verbal loop because they perceive they are losing control of the situation and they can’t figure a way out. They are tactically frozen.

“You can’t think creatively at the moment you’re confronted with the possibility of your own death, especially if you’ve never been in a similar situation before. Your preparation must come before the event. And that means experiencing an abundance of realistic, force-on-force scenarios, performed at gunfight speed, even if this training has to be done on your personal time. This will embed options you can call forth when you need them so you don’t just keep yelling at an offender who isn’t listening.”

Train Your Mind

One low-cost, easily conducted training technique for overcoming tactical freezing that Lewinski likes is hooded drills — if they’re done correctly. “The idea isn’t to immediately bombard you with such intense and challenging stimuli that you’re overwhelmed with fear, and then call it ‘stress inoculation.’

“The most productive approach is to start with scenarios that are less urgent, where there’s some time for you to practice reading a situation, evaluating suspect behavior, and then making tactical decisions. As you get more skilled, your training partners can push the urgency, gradually introducing more intensity.

“The focus should not be merely inflicting stress. It should be on your mind, on getting you adept at quickly evaluating situations, detecting potential threats or not, and employing appropriate options. This takes many exposures on a continuing basis, not just one or two exercises in the course of a year.”

Brian Willis, a former Calgary (Alberta) officer and trainer, president of Winning Mind Training, and a certified Force Science Analyst. Willis is a leader in the campaign initiated by Law Officer Magazine to reduce the yearly toll of LEO deaths in this country to below 100, a goal that has not been achieved since 1944.

The Below 100 drive focuses on 5 basic tenets, simple concepts that Willis refers to as the “low-hanging fruit” of law enforcement behavior modification — “things any officer can easily make a part of his or her daily performance that will have a profound cumulative effect.”

Wear Your Seat Belt

“Over the years, we’ve used officer safety as an excuse not to strap in for fear of being trapped in an ambush,” Willis says. “In reality, very few if any officers have been murdered because they couldn’t release their seat belt quickly.

“Yet it’s confirmed that nearly 40 percent of officers killed in vehicle collisions were not wearing their belts, and many of those lost lives undoubtedly could have been saved. Risk manager Gordon Graham, formerly of the California Highway Patrol, estimates that faithful seat belt use could cut line of duty deaths by at least 30 immediately.”

Wear Your Vest

“More than 3,500 officers’ lives have been saved by soft body armor,” Willis says, “yet about half of all active officers don’t consistently wear their vests. Even in agencies with mandatory-wear policies, the policy is often ignored and unenforced.” One study reports that the vast majority of agencies — 90% — do not regularly inspect officers’ vests to ensure that they fit and are properly maintained, conveying an attitude of indifference.

“We need to start calling out officers who show up at roll call without their vests and insist that they get them on before they go out on the street,” Willis believes.

Watch Your Speed

Officer fatalities from traffic mishaps are actually down this year compared to last, but many cops still are “driving way too fast to calls that are minor in nature,” Willis says. “Four in 10 fatal crashes of law enforcement vehicles involve a single vehicle striking a fixed object off the roadway, usually an indication of driving too fast or too fast for conditions and losing control.”

Sometimes it’s not the driver who’s the victim. He cites one case in which an officer was driving 100 mph in a 45-mph zone in response to a shoplifting call. He struck a fellow officer who was on foot picking up flares from a previous collision and killed him, before slamming into a telephone pole. That driver officer is now serving a 17-year term in prison.

Decide ‘What’s Important Now’

This is Willis’s signature concept. “It involves continually weighing your options and determining what best advances your goals,” he explains.

“Do you rush in to make an arrest, or wait until you have backup? Do you end a pursuit when the risk is too great, or stay in it regardless? Do you engage in a foot chase or a foot-surveillance? Do you talk or do you fight? Do you close the gap and use empty-hand control, or maintain distance and use an intermediate weapon. Do you shoot or not shoot?

“Deciding what’s most important right now, given the circumstances you’re facing, allows you to prioritize your behavior. It affects every aspect of your life, on duty or off.”

Remember: Complacency Kills

“Reflect on the way you’re doing the job,” Willis suggests. “What has become ‘routine’ in your practices? What does complacency look like in your life, and how can you change your mind-set so you can be on active patrol at all times? This is vital self-assessment that needs to occur on a regular basis.”

Also, he urges, “watch for signs of complacency in other officers and bring it to their attention. We need to care enough about each other to challenge dangerous behavior rather than let it pass. Ignored behavior becomes condoned behavior, and the cost too often is tallied in officers’ lives.”

Bob “Coach” Lindsey, a certified Force Science Analyst, retired colonel from the Jefferson Parish (La.) SO, and creator of the popular training course, “Mental Preparation for Winning & Surviving on Duty and Off-Duty.”

In Lindsey’s view, reducing officer fatalities boils down to one simple question: Are you willing?

“Today,” he says, “we have the best trained, best equipped officers in history. Every one of them can keep a seat belt buckled while their car is in motion, can wear a protective vest even if it’s uncomfortable, can be alert for pre-attack cues that usually precede violent acts, can intervene to correct a fellow officer’s dangerous tactical errors…but there’s a critical difference between ability and willingness.

“We have a professional obligation to be willing, a personal responsibility to be our own best bodyguard. We are compelled to have better training and stronger conviction than the armed adversary we confront. If that adversary finds us unsure, not prepared to react, hesitant but he is willing to kill without hesitation, who’s going to win?

“You won’t have time in a life-threatening situation to decide if you are willing. You must do that beforehand and repeatedly confirm your determination through self-talk, visualization, pre-planning, and the mastery of tactical options as part of your preparation for combat.”

“Most officers, God willing, will never meet lethal competition. But we all must stand ready and willing when that moment does come to address and stop the threat and to return home safely to our loved ones at the end of shift.”

About the author

The FSRC was launched in 2004 by Executive Director Bill Lewinski, PhD. – a specialist in police psychology — to conduct unique lethal-force experiments. The non-profit FSRC, based at Minnesota State University-Mankato, uses sophisticated time-and-motion measurements to document-for the first time-critical hidden truths about the physical and mental dynamics of life-threatening events, particularly officer-involved shootings. Its startling findings profoundly impact on officer training and safety and on the public’s naive perceptions.

For more information, visit www.forcescience.org or e-mail info@forcescience.org. If you would benefit from receiving updates on the FSRC’s findings as well as a variety of other use-of-force related articles, please visit www.forcesciencenews.com and click on the “Please sign up for our newsletter” link at the front of the site. Subscriptions are free.

READ THE ACLU REPORT HERE

READ THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC ARTICLE HERE

READ THE ARIZONA DAILY SUN ARTICLE HERE

READ THE TUCSON DAILY STAR ARTICLE HERE

V for Vendetta

Arizona Law Enforcement Hackings – Change your passwords!

In light of recent hackings targeted at Arizona police officers, we encourage all members to change their passwords and be cautious of what you transmit over emails and the internet.  DO NOT email passwords to yourself or other people.  When creating new passwords, think Gibberish!  Your password should be at least six characters and not a dictionary word or common name.   Experts recommend that you change your password on occasion and never enter your password in a third-party service or software that looks suspicious.

Arizona Capitol

GLEA and the other police associations in the Arizona Police Association had a great year when it came to passing laws that help protect police officer’s rights.  All five of our (APA) bills were passed into law.  Find the legislative recap below:

APA 2011 End of Session Legislative Report

Does caffeine affect shooting performance?

Have there been any studies on the reaction time and accuracy of a shooter while under the influence of caffeine or energy drinks?

I warn my firearms students before their qualification test day that they might want to stay off of coffee, soft drinks, and energy drinks since these could cause them to shoot poorly or fail their qualifications due to the effect of caffeine on stress level.

Is this a myth or should this be considered a training issue?

Phil Chachere
Certified Firearms Instructor
Police Tactics & Training
Concord, CA

Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, responds:

“I know of no studies specifically addressing the effect of caffeine on LEO shooting performance, although Google or Google Scholar should lead you to a number of academic studies about the impact of stimulants on motor skills generally in the non-police world.

“It’s clear that caffeine plays a role in physical arousal and tends to act as a distractor. The key is to train sufficiently so that you learn to live with its effects. That’s a critical function of good stress-inoculation training. By becoming familiar and competent with performing under stress, officers learn to focus their concentration on the important and necessary tasks of defending their lives and to effectively ignore or overcome distractions of all kinds, including those of a physiological nature.”

Police Fatigue

Just posted on the Force Science website, you’ll find a new article by a fitness expert detailing practical steps you can take to overcome dangerous fatigue on- and off-duty. Click here or visit: www.forcescience.org/fatiguepaper.pdf.

“Combating Police Officer Fatigue” grew out of training provided to the Greeley (CO) PD by author Reece Towle, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and sports nutritionist who serves as director of athlete development for Greeley’s Performance and Wellness Institute.

Towle offers tips for improving your sleep patterns, exercising sensibly (including a “starter program for police-specific training”), and selecting anti-fatigue foods.

Reducing fatigue is a worthy goal for cops, as we’ve often reported. When you work tired, Towle points out, your mental and physical abilities are impaired, you’re more likely to employ inappropriate uses of force, you tend to become involved in more vehicle accidents, you experience more accidental injuries, and you are more likely to die in the line of duty, to name just a few of the many risks.

Citizens Academy with a twist puts civilians in the OIS hot seat

The dominant goal of citizen police academy programs is to get civilians to walk a mile in an officer’s boots. Thanks to the creativity of Force Science Analyst Steven Goard, those who attend the academy conducted by the Livermore (CA) PD walk an important extra mile–through the landmines of a simulated OIS investigation that tests their memory and perceptions of a personal controversial shooting.

The participants, including some police critics, learn first hand the vagaries of human behavior under pressure and the challenges of credibly defending a deadly force decision that may seem suspicious to outside observers.

“Invariably they’re shocked by the experience,” says Goard, who has now developed the OIS-investigation feature across 10 of his department’s citizen academy sessions.

Among many satisfying payoffs, he recalls the reaction of an African-American woman in her late 60s. “I feel guilty,” she told Goard as she shook his hand after the exercise. “For years, I’ve been skeptical of the police. I bought into the way the media report police shootings. I just didn’t have the knowledge to enlighten my thinking.”

Speaking for the Force Science Institute, executive director Dr. Bill Lewinski notes, “Part of our mission is to educate the public about the truth of use-of-force dynamics. Steve Goard has crafted a memorable way of doing that. It’s an approach that other agencies and the communities they serve could benefit greatly from following.”

At 38, Goard has been a Livermore cop for nearly 9 years, cycling through assignments in training, SWAT, sex crimes investigation, and patrol. An avid student of human behavior, he’s currently working toward a master’s degree in psychology. He’s read so deeply on the subject that his fellow officers have nicknamed him Bookworm. After FSI began offering its certification course in Force Science Analysis, he attended at his own expense to further pursue what he calls “my passion.”

Even before that training, he’d been integrating Force Science concepts into his department’s semi-annual citizen academy after hearing Lewinski speak at a seminar in nearby San Francisco. Further fueled by his Analyst training, he expanded and polished the initial content into its present format.

The citizen academy meets roughly 4 hours a week for 17 weeks. About half way through the term, after they’ve sat through use-of-force lectures, experienced a simulator exercise, and fired some of the department’s SWAT weapons, Goard introduces the 30-35 participants typically enrolled to a special force-on-force scenario.

Partnered up and armed with Glock Simunitions pistols in a shoot house built by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, they’re instructed to respond to a given 911 call and “handle the scene as you think appropriate based on what you’ve learned in class and as you think police officers should in real life.”

At the scene, each pair encounters role-players in circumstances that quickly evolve into a tense situation designed to make the “officers” feel threatened. Details vary, but the core action generally involves a subject pulling out a cell phone, reaching for a wallet, brandishing a toy gun (plainly signified by an orange tip ), gripping a power drill, or displaying angry gestures.

“Invariably at least 1 of the student partners shoots, and most often both do,” Goard explains. “When the scenario is at its highest peak, a safety officer standing directly behind them activates an air horn or fires several blank rounds at the floor from a .38 handgun.” Everything is captured from different angles by a battery of hidden video cameras.

Immediately after the scenario, the partners are separated and told that since 1 or both used deadly force, they will need to undergo a mini OIS investigation. They are then told to fill out a questionnaire or submit to an oral interview about what happened.

The questions are based primarily on information typically sought after a police shooting, according to what prosecutors and survivors of real OISs have told Goard. In part, these include:

• Describe the call.
• What did you first observe at the scene?
• What were the suspect’s actions?
• What did you do?
• What, if any, level of force did you use?
• If you used your firearm, how many rounds did you shoot?
• Describe the suspect.
• Describe the scene.
• What kind of weapon did the suspect display, if any?
• What did you feel or experience during the encounter?
• What was said by you and by the suspect?
• What did your partner do?
• Did you hear any loud noises?
• Did you see any guns with orange tips?

And so on. “We get a lot of blank looks or blank spaces on the questionnaires because they don’t remember,” Goard says.

That task over, with no further discussion “I tell the students that I’ll be doing a presentation for the class at a later date to discuss their scenarios,” Goard says. During off hours at home, he then carefully edits footage from the cameras to reconstruct a comprehensive picture of each encounter and burns all of them to a DVD that will later be played and given to the students.

The defining moment comes weeks later shortly before graduation day. Goard starts off with some important preliminaries. First, the students are asked to again write down an account of what happened during their scenario. Then Goard shows them dash-cam recordings from YouTube or PoliceOne’s BluTube of various “mistaken judgment” shootings involving cell phones, toy guns, and other controversial elements. “I ask them to comment, and they generally remark on how ‘really bad’ the incident looks and express doubts about the involved officers’ justification for shooting,” he says.

Finally, he plays the videos of them using force and compares what the hidden cameras documented with the articulation of events they gave. “You can actually feel the shock in the room,” Goard told Force Science News.

Certain consistencies arise class after class:

• After their encounters, “all the students report seeing a gun or seeing a gun actually fired at them, which prompted them to shoot,” Goard says. “Yet in the videos, they see themselves using deadly force on people with wallets, cell phones, drills, and unarmed.” One student described a role-player as threateningly pointing an automatic rifle; in reality the “suspect” pointed aggressively with his arm.

• “They’re also always surprised at what they didn’t see that was right in front of them, how much the mind ignores under stress,” Goard says. “Amazingly, none of the students recall hearing the air horn or the blanks being fired, nor do they complain about their ears ringing even though they didn’t have ear protection. And they never see the orange tips on toy guns. A common comment is, ‘I didn’t have time to pay attention to that.’ They were worried about whether they were going to die, not about looking for orange tips.”

• Typically, the students fire more rounds than they estimate in their reports. One who said he shot only 4 times actually shot 19. Some have inaccurately claimed there was no suspect weapon in their scenario and that they didn’t shoot at all.

• Some are sobered to see that they kept “shooting and shooting and shooting–maybe 6 or 7 additional rounds–even though the suspect was down and not fighting back.” Or that they shot a suspect in the back when they said they had shot him in the chest.

• At least 85% of the students find they haven’t given accurate descriptions of the suspect, of important scene elements, or of their partner’s behavior, Goard says.

• There tend to be major differences between accounts the students give when initially questioned about their shooting and when describing the event again weeks later. In some cases, their memories have improved significantly with time. But there have been instances in which students in their second telling describe scenarios they weren’t even involved in, having apparently internalized someone else’s experience during conversations about the exercise. There are also notable differences between the accounts partners offer about the same scenario, just as there often are between fellow officers in real-world shootings.

The inconsistencies and omissions open the door for Goard to confront the students with some of the suspicions officers under investigation often have to contend with in similar circumstances: Are you lying…conspiring…contriving amnesia…trying to cover up unsavory truths?

Goard completes his presentation by explaining some of Force Science’s research findings regarding reaction time, turning time, “excessive” shots, attentional blindness, and other behavioral phenomena associated with high-stress, life-threatening encounters. He also reports on the well-known studies of perceptual distortions conducted by Dr. Alexis Artwohl, a National Board Member for FSI and a faculty member for its certification course. “The students are always very surprised at how similar their experiences are to her discoveries,” Goard says.

“Overall, it’s quite a ride,” he concludes. “From the feedback we get, I do believe that the exercise broadens the citizens’ views of officer-involved shootings and opens their minds to the ways controversial shootings can be sensationalized. We’re only 35 miles from where the BART shooting occurred, so we’re very familiar with how police actions can get distorted.

“It’s interesting to hear data, but it’s always more powerful to get at least a taste of how data transforms into reality. And the fact is that these people may someday be jurors, judging a police-shooting case. Hopefully, they’ll remember their experience and cut a well-intentioned officer some slack.”

Goard left us with a fascinating footnote. He mentioned that the academy graduates often share the DVD of the scenarios that he gives them with civilian friends while explaining the cognitive shortcomings that were exposed during the mock investigation. “Sometimes those friends attend future academies,” he says, “and even though they’ve seen the scenarios they still make the very same mistakes when it’s their turn behind the gun.”

For more information, Steve Goard can be reached at: SGoard@ci.livermore.ca.us

Public safety employees eying possible pension reform lawsuits

By Jeremy Duda – jeremy.duda@azcapitoltimes.com

Published: June 6, 2011 at 7:34 am

Unions representing police officers, firefighters and other public safety employees worked with lawmakers for months on the Legislature’s marquee pension reform bill, but that may not stop them from suing the state over it anyway.

Several public safety unions are contemplating lawsuits to block key provisions of SB1609, which will increase payments by employees and reduce benefits in the pension systems for public safety employees, corrections officers and elected officials. Other unions are considering suing over a provision in the fiscal 2012 budget that increases retirement system payments for other state employees.

The unions argue the pension reform violates a clause in the Arizona Constitution that prohibits the state from passing laws that interfere with contract obligations, as well as another constitutional provision that says retirement benefits “shall not be diminished or impaired.”

Jimmy Chavez, president of the Arizona Highway Patrol Association, said a lawsuit is likely. But with the changes to the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System not scheduled to go into effect until Jan. 1, he said the lawsuit may wait until later in the year.

Changing the payments or benefits for new hires isn’t a problem, Chavez said. But current employees and retirees bought into the system under specific circumstances, and applying the changes to them would be unconstitutional.

“We’re still trying to figure out what’s going to happen with those,” he said. “It’s anticipated there’s going to be some litigation with those.”

Chavez noted that the unions can’t actually sue over the pension reform plan because they are not technically members.

But any of their members can sue, and the unions can represent those members in court.

Mike Colletto, a lobbyist for the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona, said some of his group’s members supported the plan, but many, including Colletto, don’t. If the majority wants to challenge SB1609, members can authorize the union’s leadership to move forward at its upcoming convention, which begins June 7.

“There’s a lot of issues that need to be hashed out, but I think there’s some sentiment (in favor of a lawsuit) for sure. Our people are going to lose a lot of money in this environment, and quite frankly most of that wasn’t their fault to begin with,” Colletto said, referring to bad investments that left PSPRS woefully underfunded.

Colletto said the firefighters stayed neutral on SB1609 after Gov. Jan Brewer intervened and got them about 90 percent of what they wanted. But still, he said his union’s lack of opposition shouldn’t be interpreted as tacit support for the bill.

“It’s kind of like some guy’s pointing a gun in your face and says, ‘Give me your wallet.’ You give him the wallet, but you didn’t necessarily want to,” he said.

One unanswered question is whether the unions will form a coalition or pursue separate lawsuits. Chavez said the Arizona Highway Patrol Association has spoken with other member groups in the Arizona Police Association about the possibility of joining forces, and Arizona Fraternal Order of Police President John Ortolano said his organization is also considering banding together with other law enforcement unions.

But Ortolano said the unions that have different goals might be better off filing separate suits. For example, the Arizona Highway Patrol Association is considering challenging changes to the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP), under which retired members can go back to work without paying into the retirement system.

The Fraternal Order of Police, however, considers the DROP changes to be a “far distant third” behind the increased payments and reduced benefits that current PSPRS members face.

“DROP is the least sturdy leg to stand on in saying it’s unconstitutional,” he said.

“There is a belief amongst some people that making people pay into the retirement system while they’re in DROP, that would be legal.”

SB1609 only affects members of the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, Corrections Office Retirement Plan and Elected Officials Retirement Plan.

But other legislation affected the Arizona State Retirement System, which covers most other state employees.

Under the current system, employees and employers pay equal amounts into ASRS. But one budget bill, SB1614, increased employee contributions to 53 percent, a move that is prompting unions like the Arizona Education Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees to consider lawsuits as well.

AFSCME Local 3111 President Sheri van Horsen said union attorneys are analyzing the legislation to determine whether its members’ employment agreements are considered contracts under the Constitution, and, if so, whether SB1614 could legally be considered a breach of that contract.

“It’s a two-part question,” van Horsen said. “If the answers are ‘yes’ to those two questions, it’s going to impact all of those unions, so more than likely we would do something collectively.”

Sen. Steve Yarbrough, who sponsored SB1609, expects the unions to challenge the bill in court. But he also expects the changes to withstand the challenges.

He said legislative attorneys determined the bill does not violate the constitutional contract clause because the state’s higher priority under the Constitution was to ensure that the pensions remained solvent — something that cannot be done without the type of reform the Legislature approved.

“Tying it to the underlying health of the plan makes a difference, because the constitutional responsibility of the Legislature is to preserve the health of the plan,” said Yarbrough, a Chandler Republican.

“Allowing this thing to go the rest of the way to collapse…was the violation of the contract clause.”

Greg Jernigan, the general counsel for the Senate Republican caucus, said he believes that Article 29 of the Arizona Constitution, which establishes guidelines for the pension systems, takes precedence over the contract clause.

“You’ve got a specific provision that says what the Legislature can and can’t do, vis-à-vis the retirement systems. And I think because those are very specific to the retirement systems, those are going to take precedence over a contract clause argument,” he said.

Yarbrough said a loss in court could spell doom the pension systems. He said the bills will make the systems solvent again, but if the provisions affecting current employees are struck down, the remaining reforms dealing with new hires won’t be enough to make the pension funds whole again.

“The actuarial soundness of the plan would then be put back in significant jeopardy,”

he said. “Perhaps, if the Supreme Court were to say, ‘No, what you did isn’t good enough,’ perhaps they’ll give us a road map at that point.”

Under SB1609, current PSPRS members will see their contribution rates, which are currently at 7.65 percent of their salary, go up to 11.65 percent by 2014, while members who join after Jan. 1 will ultimately pay 13.65 percent. Retirees won’t see increases in their benefits unless PSPRS is at least 70 percent funded.

Corrections officers, however, aren’t likely to join any lawsuit against the plan, according to Martin Bihn, an attorney for the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers Association. Bihn said the changes for existing members of the Corrections Officer Retirement Plan don’t take nearly as much of a hit as their counterparts in PSPRS. Current CORP members will see their contribution rates go from 7.96 percent to 8.91 percent.