Chair Talk

June 2012

Mary Pollock, Richard Kershaw (Flint) and I had a follow-up meeting with Jan Winters (Director, Office of the State Employer) and Jeremy Stephens (State Personnel Director). There has still been no decision as to whether there will be changes in our health care plan, or if there will be rate increases for the Health Plan. The Civil Service Commission has listened to our suggestion that the Employee Benefits website have a page devoted just to retirees—that change was recently made to their website. Our website manager has put that link on our website for retirees to utilize.

The Office of Retirement Systems will be moving to a mandatory direct deposit of retirement checks to be effective on January 1, 2013. I would advise retirees that are currently receiving paper checks to either use the MI-Account or fill out and mail the paper form (R0277X, rev. 4/2010)to set up the direct deposit account for your retirement checks. I have been utilizing Direct Deposit for Retirement as well as Social Security deposits for over 10 years and have not had a problem with this process. We will have the Direct Deposit Application Form on our website for your use. Social Security will be moving to Direct Deposit in April of 2013. There will be no option to continue to get paper checks from ORS after January 1, 2013.

The SERA Plus program has been in effect since the beginning of March and we have had over 500 retirees join our SERA Chapters since the program has begun. It will be up to the Chapters to work on retaining those new members after their free enrollment year ends. We need to show these new members that we are a viable and important organization to be involved with. As officers in our respective Chapters we should be contacting these new members and invite them to our meetings and provide information as to what we are all about. It is up to all of us to promote SERA and our goals/objectives.

Cheryl Streberger (SERA PLUS Program Manager) will be visiting all SERA Chapters to answer any questions/concerns you, or your members, may have. APSA representatives will also be attending Chapter meetings. I would ask that SERA Chapters welcome Cheryl and the APSA representatives to your meetings. The SERA PLUS program is offering some very affordable and valuable benefits to our members.

Editor’s note: Bob Kopasz is Chair of the Michigan SERA Council. He may be reached at P.O. Box 692, Mt. Morris, MI 48458; phone 810/240-8380.