Please read this letter to see how we represent you
To Fellow Retirees:
I thoroughly love being retired; however, it is not without its challenges.
What I love most is time: to get up a little later in the morning, to travel off-peak, to do errands off-peak, to design a day as I think best, to have other days to do all the things I used to do on Saturday and/or Sunday.
However, there are things that I find frustrating:
On an already reduced salary, I have to fund almost 100% of my health insurance premiums. As is the case in many Connecticut teaching districts, the teachers’ contract in my town had no language about retiree insurance benefits. Except for the $110 per month distributed by Connecticut to Greenwich(my last employer), all of an increasingly more expensive insurance plan is my responsibility. Where does that $110 come from? It comes from the HIPA (Health Insurance Premium Account), which stems from the required additional 1% and then 1.25% that I paid during my active years, and which current active teachers continue to put in. Oh, yes, the State of Connecticut contributes $34 per month of that $110, although they had to “borrow” it from the HIPA account for the last two years. No word on repayment that I know of. When I tell people outside of education that I pay for my own health insurance, I find their reactions range from incredulity to being flabbergasted. I retired at age 57, so I have a few more years to go before I can (hopefully) get on Medicare. Try telling someone that some teachers don’t even qualify for Medicare because we don’t pay in to Social Security, and we don’t have a spouse, or our spouse did not pay into Social Security either. Unless we were hired after 1986 and paid into Medicare, some of us will be subject to funding our own insurance at the premium paid by our last employer (or paying a much higher premium to Medicare) over the rest of our life.
Over the last two years, Social Security has received no Cost of Living Adjustment. Since one criterion for cost of living adjustment for a Connecticut teacher’s pension is whether or not Social Security gives one, I have received no cost of living adjustment (raise) in those two years. In the midst of all this, I am lucky to live in Connecticut, which has the distinction of being one of only a few states that tax pensions, so I pay tax on my pension.
Meanwhile my health insurance premiums for the 2012 year are about to go up almost 20%. I was paying $765 per month through December 2011. I will be paying $915 per month, an increase of $150 per month, for the next two years. Who knows where it will go after that! Yes, the plan is excellent, but that sort of raise really puts a kink in my monthly budget. I hope my fledgling massage therapy practice and two other part time jobs can keep up! These situations are State based conditions which would have to be changed at the State House in Hartford.
And I am blessed to be in relatively good shape compared to many others!
Then I talk to my friends who are also widows, and I realize I am lucky- not to have lost my husband, but that he was a teacher. My friends whose husbands (or wives) paid in to Social Security receive little or nothing of what their spouse received. Once the Social Security recipient has passed away, next to nothing goes to the surviving spouse if he/she has a separate pension. This is known as Government Pension Offset (GPO). Those of us who worked other jobs prior to or in addition to teaching also take a big cut in our benefits, unless our non-teaching salary met certain thresholds. This is called Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). These are federal provisions, which would require Congressional action in Washington change.
I know times are tight for everyone, individuals and governments alike. I just shake my head at how Connecticut teachers as a group seem to be on the wrong end of the stick in retiree benefits, social security offsets, and, yet we are still thought to be living off the State. Connecticut is not Wisconsin, but there are misconceptions about Connecticut teachers’ contributions to their own retirement and what we receive. As I said, I love retirement, but it comes at a price.
Along with other groups and often leading the charge, Southern Fairfield Country Retired Teachers’ Association has been active in addressing all of the issues raised above. John Kane has been a tireless spokesperson for years, starting from being instrumental in getting our pension funded properly, secured by law, and bonded. Rhoda Dix and Frank Cooper have been learning about and talking about the Social Security injustices. Alone, they can’t make the changes.
However, with all of as a united front of retired teachers, their voices will be magnified many times. Become informed and let your representatives at both the State and National level know that change is needed.
Join those who are suggesting solutions to these problems and who are speaking up about the issues that can negatively impact your well-deserved retirement. Join Southern Fairfield Country Retired Teachers’ Association. Membership is only $15. It will be money well-spent.
Sincerely,
Janess Coffina