Chair Talk
March 2016
On Thursday, February 11, 2016 I attended the first meeting of the new State of Michigan Retirement Board. The new Retirement Board was formed by Governor Rick Snyder (Executive Order No. 2015-13). The Executive Order combined the State Employees’ Retirement System Board, Judges’ Retirement System Board and the Military Retirement Provisions. The new board will provide oversight of those three retirement systems that service over 88,000 active and retired employees. Because this was the first meeting of the new board it was longer than usual. During the meeting there was an overview of the 3 systems, Judges’ Actuarial Pension and Health Valuation and an Investment report by the Bureau of Investments. The fund ratio of the State Employees’ Retirement fund (2014) is 61.6% based on Actuarial Value. The fund ratio for the Judges’ Retirement fund (2014) is 85.8% based on Actuarial Value.
On April 1, 2016 at the SERA Executive Board we will be introducing a new SERA Chapter. The new Chapter will be ASEM Chapter #25. ASEM stands for Association of State Employee’s in Management. The new Chapter currently has 100 members with a possible membership of over 4,000. As soon as ASEM becomes a Chapter of SERA there members will be eligible for the SERA-PLUS benefit package. The Hantz group will also start working to recruit new members for the ASEM chapter.
Kerrie Vanden Bosch (ORS Director will be the speaker at our March 4, 2016 CC meeting. Kerrie was named ORS Director a few short months ago. I look forward to working with her about retiree issues.
Still no decisions from the State on new changes in Retiree Healthcare Plan. There will be no reductions in benefits (may be additions to benefits). Co-pays and deductibles remain the same.
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.