Our July luncheon was held at the Mission Bay Yacht Club, courtesy of our Vice President Patti Karnes' brother.  Perfect weather and a great view were enjoyed by all-- as well as a chance to visit in an ideal setting.     

 

April Boling, who chaired Mayor Dick Murphy's Pension Reform Committee, spoke to us again about the "corridor" issue. She had previously alerted us to expect this issue to arise, and it has. It was a subject of discussion by the SDCERS Board at their meeting later that week. It is April's opinion that if the corridor were to be revised to lower the City's required contribution to our retirement system, it would be tantamount to MP3 - and we all know the result of MP1 and MP2! (At the request of our Board, Patti spoke at the SDCERS meeting stating our position against revising the corridor).

Judy Swink, who has been a long term member of the Park and Recreation Department's Mission Bay Committee, spoke to us on the history of Mission Bay and proposed changes to the park's master plan.

As you know, recently the Union Tribune provided information on current City employees, which included a link to get personal information. All one needs to do is enter a name and salary information is provided. Now we may be subject to the same; what I would call invasion of privacy. On July 10, SDCERS' CEO David Wescoe wrote me that the Union Tribune has "requested similar data from SDCERS on retirement benefits for all SDCERS retirees, including monthly retirement allowances and DROP balances."  Further, his letter states, "California court rulings have determined that retirement benefits of public employees are considered salary, and that disclosure of salary data for public employees does not constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy." Mr. Wescoe's letter says they don't know what the newspaper plans to do with this data, but say we may see similar articles on retirees' benefits and wanted us to be forewarned. I appreciate receiving the advance warning so we at least won't be surprised.

We've received information that there is a bill before Congress, called the Social Security Fairness Act of 2009, which would repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset laws. Under these laws, Social Security benefits are reduced for retired and disabled workers who receive a government pension from employment not covered by Social Security, but who are entitled to Social Security benefits from other employment that is covered by Social Security. We will be researching to find out more about this bill, as, if passed, it could have a huge impact on some of our members.

Hope to see you at the August 11th barbecue!

                                                                 Nancy