The trouble with
retirement is that you never get a day off. ~Abe Lemons |
The April
19, 2008 CSU-ERFA State Council Meeting was called to
order shortly after 10 AM by President Don Dewey.
In addition to a lengthy agenda that included
confirmations of appointments made by President Don
Dewey, election of officers, and reports from the Chairs
of our standing committees and liaisons to the CSU
Academic Senate and the California Faculty Association,
presentations to the State Council were made by Dora
Beale Polk, Henry Jones, and Elizabeth Hoffman assisted
by Erin Hicks.
Dora
Beale Polk (Long Beach) addressed the Council
briefly to express her deep appreciation for the support
she received from our grant awards program. The
grant we provided allowed her to complete her novel
Something Must Be Done, a story of growing up in the
desperate poverty of Wales during the Depression.
Henry
Jones, retiree representative to the CalPERS Board,
was our featured speaker.
Jones,
shown here with President Don Dewey, spoke about the
strength of the CalPERS pension funds and the actions
that CalPERS has taken to adjust its asset allocations
to cope with volatility in the stock and bond markets.
He noted that CalPERS is 100% funded at present, and
that an average 7.75% rate of return is needed to
maintain full funding of pensions into the future.
This fiscal year returns are expected to be flat, but that was
balanced by a very good return last fiscal year (19%). He
also reminded the Council that 75 cents of every pension
dollar paid out by CalPERS comes from investment income.
The remaining 25 cents comes from both employee
and employer contributions.
Jones also
spoke at length about the challenges presented to
CalPERS by rising costs for health care. He
indicated that CalPERS is taking a number of steps to
control health care costs.
Elizabeth Hoffman, California Faculty Association
Vice President for Lecturers, assisted by Erin Hicks,
CFA Deputy Political Director, addressed the afternoon
session of the Council.
Hoffman
(on the right) and Hicks (on the left) outlined the work
that CFA is carrying out with the Alliance for the CSU
to reverse or minimize the budget cuts that threaten the
system.
Election of Officers: Don Dewey (Los
Angeles) was chosen to serve another term as
President of CSU-ERFA, Dieter Renning
(Stanislaus) will serve another term as Vice
President, Judith Stanley (East Bay) will
serve another term as Secretary, and Mark
Shapiro (Fullerton) was chosen to serve as
Treasurer for the coming fiscal year.
In
addition Thomas Donahue (San Diego), Frieda
Stahl (Los Angeles), and Sam Wiley (Dominguez
Hills) were chosen to serve as Delegates-At-Large to
the State Council.
Confirmation of Appointments: The following
appointments were confirmed by the Council:
Executive
Director - Don Cameron (Northridge)
Editor of The Reporter - Ted Anagnoson
(Los Angeles)
Webmaster - Mark Shapiro (Fullerton)
Archivist - Judson Grenier (Dominguez Hills)
At-Large Member of the Executive Committee (term ending
2010) - David Humphers (Sacramento)
At-Large Member of the Executive Committee (term ending
2010) - Milt Dobkin (Humboldt)
Grant Awards Committee - Max Norton (Stanislaus)
Chair, Sally Hurtado de Lopez (Sonoma),
Eleanor Price (Dominguez Hills) and
Iris Shah (Northridge) members.
Health
Benefits Committee - David Humphers (Sacramento)
Chair, Milton Dobkin (Humboldt), Barbara
Sinclair (Los Angeles), Robert Wilson (San
Jose) and Alan Wade (Sacramento) members.
Legislative Affairs Committee - Robert Bess
(Sacramento) Chair, Ted Anagnoson (Los Angeles),
David Elliott (San Jose), David Humphers
(Sacramento) and Judith Stanley (East Bay)
members.
Membership
Committee - David Quadro (Fresno) Chair, Adnan
Daoud (San Jose), Rosemarie Marshall (Los
Angeles), Donna Ryan (San Francisco) and Alan
Wade (Sacramento) members.
Publications Committee - Ted Anagnoson (Los
Angeles) Chair, Vincent Buck (Fullerton),
Judson Grenier (Dominguez Hills), Iris Shah
(Northridge), Mark Shapiro (Fullerton) and
Frieda Stahl (Los Angeles) members.
Pre-
and Post Retirement Concerns Committee - Thomas
Donahue (San Diego) Chair, William Blischke
(Dominguez Hills), Rita Jones (Long Beach),
June Pollak (Fullerton) and Herb Rutemiller
(Fullerton) members.
Liaison
to the CSU Academic Senate - William Blischke
(Dominguez Hills).
Liaison
to the California Faculty Association - Dieter
Renning (Stanislaus).
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Reports
The
following are highlights of reports presented at the
meeting.
Acting
Executive Director's Report: Our Acting Executive
Director Don Cameron reported that our 2007-08 income
and expenditures are in line with the 2007-08 budget,
and that we expect to complete the fiscal year with a
small surplus. Several steps were taken by Don to
control expenses during the past year including the
selection of a new printer for The Reporter.
Enough money was saved by the change to allow for
mailing of The Reporter by first-class mail.
Don noted that income from new members' dues has more
than compensated for the loss of income from members who
passed away during the past year. Don also
presented the proposed 2008-09 budget under New
Business. The new budget includes a small reserve
($3,000) for unanticipated expenses.
Health
Benefits Committee: David Humphers outlined several
initiatives that CalPERS has taken to improve the
quality of health care for members and annuitants.
He also noted that CalPERS received about $14 million
from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services for
the Retiree Drug Subsidy for 2007. These funds
will be rebated to the contracting public agencies based
upon their contribution to health care premiums.
(These premiums fund the supplement to Medicare programs
that provide enhanced drug benefits for retirees
compared to the Medicare Part D drug benefit. The
subsidy partially compensates for this.)
David
reported that CalPERS staff will recommend to the
CalPERS Health Benefits Committee that all retirees over
the age of 65 should be moved to Medicare health plans.
Currently, those retirees who reach age 65 and who have
contributed to Social Security and Medicare are required
to enroll in a Medicare plan with CalPERS offering
supplementary coverage. However, some retirees
(those who joined the system before enrollment in Social
Security was either an option or required) currently are
not eligible for Medicare. Under the staff
proposal CalPERS would pick up the cost to "buy into"
Medicare for these members. It is estimated that
even with those costs, CalPERS would save about $3
million per year by having all members in Medicare
plans. This announcement generated some
discussion, because some of our members who live in less
populated areas or in states outside California have
reported difficulty in finding a primary care physician
who would accept new Medicare patients. The full
report is available for downloading:
PDF format -
MSWord format
Legislative Committee: Bob Bess presented the
report on pending legislation that might affect members
and other retirees along with proposed recommendations
(support, oppose, or watch) for our consideration.
The item generating the most discussion was AB 2940 (DeLeon)
that would create the California Financial Advantage
Account Program for non-public employees that would be
administered by CalPERS. Since CalPERS is still in
the process of analyzing this bill, it was recommended
that we maintain a WATCH status for this bill until
CalPERS takes a position on it. The full report is
available for downloading:
PDF format -
MSWord format
Report
from the Editor of The Reporter: Ted
Anagnoson noted that The Reporter continues to
evolve with each issue. Owing to fiscal
constraints each issue is limited to 10 pages.
However, the change to a new printer has saved the
Association enough money to permit first-class mailing
of the newsletter. Ted has been analyzing the
recent questionnaire that addressed communications
issues that was sent to all members thanks to a generous
donation from Milt Dobkin (Humboldt).
The
response was much higher than had been expected.
Approximately 40% of our membership filled out and
returned their individual questionnaires and returned
them to headquarters. The results indicated that
there was substantial interest in more coverage of campus
affiliate news, news about the accomplishments of
individual members, profiles or activities of retirees,
and CSU news. There also was interest in having
more pictures in The Reporter.
About a
third of our members said it was important to receive
The Reporter by first-class mail. Somewhere
between 15% and 31% of our membership would be satisfied
to view The Reporter only online (The Reporter
usually is posted online at about the same time it goes
to the printer.)
The
questionnaire also asked questions about our website.
About 15% of the membership has used the Association's
website, but a surprisingly high percentage of our
members were unaware of our expanded website. Many
said that they would check it out. Nevertheless,
relatively high interest was expressed about the
importance of topics such as current events, long-term
care, accomplishments of the Association, and having
The Reporter available online among those who had
not used the website.
Among
those who use the website strong interest was expressed
in features such as the News and View Page (current
events), Member Services, Long-Term Care Information,
and the online version of The Reporter.
Both the full report and the questionnaire results are
available for downloading.
Publications Committee Report
PDF format -
MSWord format
Questionnaire Results
PDF format -
MSWord format
Webmaster: Reported that there has been a slow, but
steady increase in the number of visits to our website.
We now average more than 30 visits per day to the site.
Grant
Awards Committee: Recommended a grant in the amount
of $2,000 be awarded to Dr. Christine Kolar, Associate
Professor Emeritus, Cal Poly Pomona for the design and
development for publication of a resource guide for
education faculty and secondary practitioners focusing
on integrating structured journal writing into
curriculum and professional development activities.
Membership Committee: Reports that 28 new members
have joined the Association since March 1 of this year.
Pre-
and Post-Retirement Committee: Reports that much of
its time this past year was spent addressing three major
concerns: the Richman Initiative, which would have
seriously reduced retirement benefits for new employees
(this failed to obtain enough signatures to be placed on
the ballot but may surface again); the work of the
Governor's Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits
Commission, which completed its work and made a number
of recommendations (mostly regarding the funding of
health benefits) that are being considered by the
Legislature, and a survey of our affiliates regarding
programs, activities, and campus benefits for emeriti.
CFA
Liaison: Reports that much of CFA's recent efforts
have been aimed at restoring the Governor's proposed CSU
budget cuts. CSU-ERFA is working with CFA and many
other groups on this issue.
CSU
Academic Senate Liaison: Also reported that the
proposed budget cuts were an area of major concern, and
opposing the cuts appears to be one area where all
segments of the CSU agree.
Archivist: Reports that literally thousands of
documents from the early days of CSU-ERFA have been
cataloged in the CSU Archives at Dominguez Hills.
A
description of the material is available online;
and, eventually many of the documents, themselves, will
be available online.
In other
business, Judson Grenier, proposed a
motion regarding loyalty oaths that passed without
dissent.
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