Executive Director s HQ Report (Independence Day Edition!)

Transcription

1 Executive Director s HQ Report (Independence Day Edition!) To: Board of Directors, California State Retirees From: Bob Hendricks, Executive Director Date: June 25, 2015 Lobby Day 2015 Lobby Day kicked-off with a training event dinner the night before on Tuesday, April 7, 2015, where the California State Retirees welcomed Assembly member Dr. Richard Pan as the keynote speaker. On Wednesday, April 8, 2015, the California State Retirees descended upon the capitol for our annual Lobby Day. The day was tremendously successful, providing the opportunity for our member representatives to meet with many State Assembly and Senate members. Our members did a fantastic job in highlighting the key issues of importance to our membership; protection of our pensions and health coverage. The event was well received by both our member representatives and the Assembly and Senate members. New Officer Training Video Training Effort New this year, the California State Retirees HQ has been coordinating with several presenters to create training videos for Officer s training. These videos specifically are geared towards the training requirements for Presidents, Vice-Presidents and Secretaries. We anticipate that the videos will be complete within the next couple weeks and made available online as well as mailed to new officers on a DVD that can be played on a computer. In addition, the Officer s Handbook has been updated for 2015 and is being provided to all Officers at the Board of Director s meeting on Thursday, June 25, 2015.

2 California State Fair 2015 The California State Fair is July Given the success of last years State Fair, the Board has elected to participate in this year s event as well. CSR HQ has been busy scheduling members to help staff the CSR booth and we wish to thank those volunteers for helping out. If you are planning to attend the State Fair this year, please be sure to stop by the CSR booth and say hello to our volunteers. Henry Jones re-elected to CalPERS Board Henry Jones has been re-elected to the CalPERS Board, representing retires. The CSR Board of Directors endorsed Mr. Jones, who was elected to his first four-year term on the board in 2008 and was re-elected in His current term expires on Jan. 15, 2016 and his new term begins Jan. 16, 2016 and expires Jan. 15, General Counsel / Delegate Assembly Preliminary work has already begun in preparation for General Counsel / Delegate Assembly. We have already conducted a strategy session with CSR s Sargent at Arms, Bobbi Estrada, and we have been coordinating with CSEA s efforts for GC. Marilyn Ferrasci-Hamilton has offered to meet with CSR staff to provide assistance and answer any questions staff may have as we begin to nail down event details. Legislative Successes High Deductible Health Plans CSR President Tim Behrens testifies at the Joint Informational Hearing at the California State Assembly on March 18, voicing CSR s concerns regarding the proposed inclusion of High Deductible Health Plans at CalPERS. The High Deductible Health Plan component of the budget was dropped from the final approved budget. AB 890 Anesthesiologist Assistants CSR Executive Director, Bob Hendricks, testifies in opposition to AB 890, which would have allowed a new class of anesthesia providers to serve under the anesthesiologists during surgery. CSR opposed this bill as it introduced lessor qualified providers in a surgical situation, requiring full oversight of the anesthesiologist and therefore could only lead to increased costs for care. The bill was left in appropriations committee, effectively killing it for this legislative period. See these videos on our YouTube Channel at: Page: 2 of 5

3 CalPERS Benefits Education Events (CBEEs) CalPERS Benefits Education Events (CBEEs) are important events we attend, because it gives CSR an opportunity to reach state workers before they retire while they are in the planning process. The CBEEs are open to all members who will be receiving retirement benefits from CalPERS. We have a table at the larger events and hand out literature to people who are interested in joining our organization after retirement. We also answer questions regarding what organizations are out there for retirees. Our Retirement Guide is a huge asset to the people who stop by our table because it aids them in the retirement process with CalPERS; preparing them for retirement 3 years out by showing them what the steps are and when they need to be completed. Recent CBEE Fairs: Hilton Irvine/Orange County Airport Mar 13 & 14 Resort at Squaw Creek, Olympic Valley April 10 & 11 Doubletree San Diego /Mission Valley May 8 & 9 Hilton Pasadena June 5 & 6 Sofitel San Francisco Bay, Redwood City June 12 & 13 Upcoming CBEE Fairs: Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, 2025 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles July 10 & 11 Riverside Convention Center, th St., Riverside, CA July 17 & 18 DoubleTree by Hilton, 3100 Camino Del Rio Court, Bakersfield, CA Aug 7 & 8 Hyatt Regency Orange County, Harbor Blvd., Garden Grove Aug 14 & 15 Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J St., Sacramento Sept 18 & 19 DoubleTree by Hilton Sonoma Wine Country, One Doubletree Dr., Rohnert Park Jan 29 & 30 Embassy Suites Monterey Bay-Seaside, 1441 Canyon Del Rey Blvd., Seaside Feb 26 & 27 Marriott Oakland City Center, 1001 Broadway, Oakland April 15 & 16, Red Lion Hotel, 1830 Hilltop Dr., Redding May 20 & 21 CSR Wins Enhanced Retiree Vision Plan CSR reported in the May 2015 edition of the Retiree, after years of negotiations between California State Retirees and the California Human Resources Department (CalHR), a new, enhanced retiree vision care plan for retirees will be available during the open enrollment period this fall. The voluntary plan is essentially a mirror image of the enhanced vision plan that exists for the current active state employees. The success of this achievement was in no small part due to the dedication and commitment of many CSR Members and leadership to include CSR President Tim Behrens, Stephanie Hueg, Susan Sears, and Al Darby. Page: 3 of 5

4 California Senior Legislature's (CSL) Rally Day at the Capitol May 6 Members of California State Retirees' Chapter 2 were among the many exhibitors and organizations at the California Senior Legislature's (CSL) Rally Day at the Capitol May 6. Pictured are Chapter 2 Vice President Phyllis Johnson; Gina Oviedo of Chapter 2; Carol Cannon from Chapter 165; and Sherry Yamazumi from Chapter 165. The California Senior Legislature (CSL) primary mission is to gather ideas for legislation at the state and federal levels, craft the ideas into formal proposals, prioritize the proposals, present them to members of the Legislature or the Congress, and advocate for laws implementing the ideas. Senior Legislators seek state lawmakers to author at least 10 of the Session s priority proposals. They then work throughout the year to ensure adoption of these measures. ( Reed / DeMaio Initiative On June 2, former San Diego City Councilmember Carl DeMaio (R) and former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed (D), filed a statewide ballot initiative to reform compensation and pension benefits of state and local government employees. There are still several steps before the initiative gets onto the 2016 ballot. The first hurdle for the initiative is getting clearance on the title and summary from the Attorney General s office. The initiative, as proposed, is entitled the The Voter Empowerment Act, a title that is at best misleading. It is expected that this title will not stand. The second hurdle for the initiative is the requirement to collect of 585,407 valid signatures, the success of which may be dependent on the final title and summary. The California State Retirees (CSR) is a member of Californians for Retirement Security (CRS) ( which boasts a coalition size of over more 1.6 million Californians representing public employees and retirees. Be sure to review postings on any of our social media sites; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube for the latest breaking news coverage regarding this measure. CSR President Tim Behrens is also pursuing the idea of additional communications efforts to ensure that all our members are informed of this significant threat to our pensions. United Healthcare UnitedHealthcare Group Advantage PPO/HMO is seeking to become the single provider of services for four of the Medicare Advantage plans offered at CalPERS with the exception of the Kaiser HMO plan and the PPO plans of PERS Select, PERS Choice, PERSCare PERS Choice and Healthcare Medicare Advantage PPO. A Frequently Asked Questions document can be found on CalPERS website at this address: Page: 4 of 5

5 Membership Application Online! Implementation of the online membership application process, giving prospective members the ability to go to our website, click on the Join tab and choose Join CSR has been a great success. Since implementation, we began seeing about 4 new applications per month. Since that time, the number of applications that have been coming in from the online application has increased to about a dozen applications per month. Another initiative underway at CSR HQ is a change to application forms so that we can capture additional information regarding how applicants came to hear about CSR. The forms will each have a separate code to identify which form was submitted, and will include a new item entitled How did you hear about us. If an applicant finds out about CSR from an Ambassador, but uses the online application instead of the application provided by the Ambassador, we will have enough information to appropriately credit the Ambassador. This change will also allow us to track applications resulting from special advertising or outreach events, such as CBEEs, State Fair, and local advertising. By focusing on where the applications are originating, we can then measure which events are most successful, allowing us to better focus our expenditures towards activities. CSR Elections The election process went relatively smooth, however there was an issue with Chapters 36 and 165, where the election vendor inadvertently left out the candidate statement forms. The issue was reported to HQ within a few days of ballots going out, at which point HQ contacted the elections vendor, who confirmed his error. An emergency Board meeting was scheduled along with legal counsel to discuss the issue and consider corrective actions. The Board, with the advice of legal counsel, determined that since some ballots had already been received, releasing the candidate statements at that time would disenfranchise those that had already voted, resulting in an immediate invalidation of the elections for those chapters. Therefore they elected to allow the completion of the election and address afterwards. Once elections closed, the Board quickly met to address protests based on the missing candidate statements, and have ordered re-balloting for those two chapters. Notices of the re-balloting for Chapters 36 and 165 have just been sent out, and include information regarding the re-balloting process. The notice includes the following schedule for the re-balloting of those two chapters: New blue ballots and envelopes will be mailed by July 6, Those ballots must be completed and received by CSR Headquarters in the new blue envelopes no later than August 4, 2015 by 5:00 PM. Page: 5 of 5