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Check your district to see when your next Community Advisory Board meeting will be held in 2022!
NCRGEA TRIVIA!
WINNERS: At the end of the 30-day contest period, one winner will be chosen from all entries. Your prize will be mailed to you, so be sure we have your correct address by completing all the information on the Trivia form.
PRIZE: All may play Trivia but only members of NCRGEA will be eligible to win the cash prize.
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Communications Committee
Zoom link here:
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Technology Committee
Transcription:
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Passcode: gpFbY8+A
Recording:
Passcode: gpFbY8+
NCRGEA Government Relations Update #21-28
Legislators are conferencing this week, meeting behind closed doors to hammer out a compromised budget between the House and the Senate.
- Right now, House legislators have a 2 percent bonus for state retirees in its budget.
- Right now, House Bill 469—authorizing a 2 percent bonus for local government retirees, remains stuck in the House Pensions Committee.
- Right now, it’s time to make your voice heard.
Visit House & Senate Conferees for S 105 – Appropriations Act 2021-2023 to find contact information for the budget conferees, including email and phone. Tell the budget conferees and your legislators that you and all retired public servants need an inflation abating cost of living adjustment.
As always, thank you for the many contributions you gave to make our communities and state safe, prosperous, and healthy. We are proud to serve you and our whole retiree family.
Supreme Court to Hear Lake Case October 4, 2021
After several procedural motions from both sides and orders from the Supreme Court, that Court eventually issued an order last week that the case would be heard by the Court at oral argument. On Friday, the Court set the case to be heard at oral argument on Monday October 4 at 3:00 PM in the Supreme Court at 2 East Morgan Street in Raleigh.
The Court will consider the retirees’ argument that the Court of Appeals was incorrect in reversing the Superior Court’s ruling in favor of the retirees. The arguments can be viewed on October 4th at 3:00 pm at http://govu.us/supreme-court-of-nc-oral-arguments
Here is the history of the Lake, et al. v State Health Plan, et al. to put the latest developments in context. In 2011, the General Assembly amended the State Health Plan to require retirees to contribute a premium to receive benefits under the 80/20 plan. Believing that the State had promised 80/20 benefits in a contractual fashion, over 30 retirees sued the State Health Plan and others in 2012 in Superior Court in Gaston
County. The Superior Court Judge certified the case as a class action and ruled in 2017 that the retirees were entitled to win the case. The Judge’s order provided that damages would be determined after receiving expert testimony.
The State appealed the trial court’s order to the Court of Appeals. In an opinion issued in 2019, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the trial court had erred and ordered the case back to Superior Court to be dismissed. Plaintiff retirees petitioned the Supreme Court to grant discretionary review of the Court of Appeals decision.
Stay Tuned!!
Richard Rogers
NCRGEA Executive Director
NCRGEA Government Relations Update #21-26
We are very thankful to the membership of the N.C. House of Representatives, who have listened to our concerns about the failure of the State’s public pensions to keep up with inflation, and the hardship this has inflicted on our membership.
The two percent bonus included in the prospective House budget will help retired government employees as they try to recover financially from the ongoing COVID-19 situation and the recent spike in inflation nationally.
However, the two percent bonus, as currently drafted in the budget, does not bring sustainable relief as a recurring cost of living adjustment would. As such, this is only a temporary panacea for a greater problem. Retired governmental employees have received very little in the way of a cost-of-living adjustment since the financial crisis of 13 years ago. Our pensions had already lost roughly 20 percent of their purchasing power even before COVID and the current inflation struck.
As we have pointed out in the past, retirees are not asking for a handout from the government. In their working years, most of them eschewed more lucrative private-sector work in favor of employment with government agencies due to the promise of a secure retirement. North Carolina has a moral obligation to these hundreds of thousands of former governmental employees who helped build this state.
What is needed is a permanent and recurring COLA, similar to what was offered by the General Assembly prior to 2008. This is the only way in which our retirees’ pension values can be stabilized and the long-term financial security they were promised in their working years, assured.
While thankful, we sincerely hope that this issue will be revisited by the legislature as the budget process continues.
Stay Tuned!
Richard Rogers
NCRGEA Executive Director
NAEP is Hiring – Assessment Administrators Needed
Assessment Administrators Needed
Seeking motivated individuals to proctor in-school assessment sessions with fourth- and eighth-grade students for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Must be available to work the specified data collection period of January 24 to March 4, 2022. Paid training, paid time, and mileage reimbursement for local driving, and weekly paychecks. This is a part-time, temporary position. For more information, visit http://www.WorkNAEP.com and provide your name and email. We will contact you with a link to our online application when it is available. Online applications will be accepted beginning in July 2021. Questions? Email: NAEPrecruit@westat.com.
Protecting the health and safety of our employees and survey participants is a top priority for Westat. Based on recommendations from the CDC and other public health authorities, we require staff to protect and monitor their health while working on their assignment. The use of personal protective equipment, regular testing for COVID-19, or other screening activities is required; getting vaccinated is strongly recommended and may be required in some locations.
The data collection window may be extended due to weather or other delays.
WESTAT
EOE, including disability/veterans