Senate Bill 5856, sponsored by Sen. Rodney Tom, would remove the existing pension plan for all state employees under age 45 and force them to accept 401(k) plans instead.

In the Olympian newspaper, Tom says that state employee pension plans are a burden on taxpayers. I would like to remind the senator that state employees are taxpayers, too. We are educating young people in Bellevue’s K-12 public schools as well as at the state universities and colleges, including UW and Bellevue College.

We are not fat cats making truckloads of money on the backs of taxpayers; we are taxpayers, we are voters, and we will remember Rodney Tom at the polls.

Becky Turnbull, Bellevue