Welcome to Fall and thank you to those who were able to attend the 2026 WAFWP Annual Meeting (either virtually or in-person). For those that were unable to attend, please see the links and brief updates below or reach out to any of the Executive Board with your questions.

New Executive Board members. Please welcome Chris Pike (Treasurer) and Lauren Bauerschmidt (Habitat Program Rep) to the WAFWP Executive Board. Liz and Tristan have elected to help both Chris and Lauren transition into their new roles over the coming weeks. I want to deeply thank both Liz and Tristan for their years of service. We have been fortunate to have so many active board members over the last few years.   

Reduced Member Dues for one year. During our September Executive Board meeting, the Board unanimously voted to reduce dues from 0.7% down to 0.5% for one year. Despite having one of the lowest union dues rates in the state, we hope reducing this one financial burden can offset the increasing daily costs of members and add a little cushion for members since the State refused to provide a cost-of-living increase next year. The Board will evaluate how this reduction in dues affects our accounts to ensure we can continue to provide the same level of services we have in the past few years, while continuing to rise to meet increasing member needs, and maintain our rainy-day funds. The Board will revisit this reduction next September and report back to membership at the next annual meeting. We were told by Payroll this should take effect by November.

SWAG. NEW for 2026. For those dues-paying members who attended the annual meeting (virtual or in-person), you will receive an email from me and then the vendor (MerchLoop/StokedOn Printing) with instruction on how to use your $75 e-gift card. There were a fair number of attendees that did not send their personal emails via the QR code or were just name initials on the Zoom call that we could not identify. If you do not receive an email from me later today, please reach out (president@wafwp.org) for assistance.

Upcoming Member events and meetings. For those who prefer a long lead time, please see below and our website HERE for upcoming events and meetings. We will continue to add events and meetings throughout the next year to our website.

WAFWP Information Links:

2026 WAFWP By-Laws, changes, and implementation strategy

2027-2029 CBA changes (the updated CBA will be placed HERE once we receive it from OFM)

2026 WAFWP Annual Meeting PowerPoint slides

2026 WAFWP Annual Meeting Minutes (coming soon)

Thank you all again and we look forward to hearing from you.

Candace, WAFWP President

WAFWP Executive Board Members