NOTE: CHAPTER MEETINGS MAY BE CANCELED AT THE DISCRETION OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD. WATCH YOUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTERS FOR NOTIFICATION OF CANCELED MEETINGS.

Transcription

1 January 2019 NUMBER General Meeting Date: January 14, 2019 Time: 1:00PM Meeting Place: Westside Improvement Club ( ) 4109 West E Street, Bremerton, WA (National Avenue & E Street) Program: Legislative Chair, Steve Ferguson, Will Answer the Question: What Is the National Debt Costing YOU? NARFE is recognized as the association devoted exclusively to serving and protecting the earned entitlements, rights and benefits of all federal retirees, employees and survivors. Executive Board meetings are held from noon to 2:00PM at the Westside Improvement Club the Wednesday prior to general meetings. Members are welcome to join us. UPCOMING EVENTS * Chapter Meeting February 11 th * Chapter Meeting March 11 th * LEGcon19 March 10 th - 13 th * Chapter Meeting April 8 th * Chapter Meeting May 13 th NOTE: CHAPTER MEETINGS MAY BE CANCELED AT THE DISCRETION OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD. WATCH YOUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTERS FOR NOTIFICATION OF CANCELED MEETINGS.

2 PRESIDENT Bill Powers I ll start off this New Year article with a big thank you to our chapter s executive board members. Their dedication and working together made 2018 a successful year. In January 2019, the new 116 th Congress convenes. Various states will have approximately one hundred newly elected officials going to Washington DC; NARFE s Legislative Conference, LEGcon19, will be busy introducing NARFE to these new legislators. Also, NARFE s new National President, Kenneth Thomas, will be introducing his goals to us in the coming months. At the local level, Lanny Ross is our new NARFE-PAC representative. You ll be hearing from him about becoming a Sustainer at our February chapter meeting. We will get a few new members transferring into our chapter due to closure of Poulsbo s Chapter 881. They are down to 75 members and decided to start the closure process. So, recruiting and retaining members remains critical. Retirees can save time, money, and hassle by signing up for dues withholding. Pay only $44 vs. $50 for annual national/chapter dues. For those of us who prepared our F-100, Be Prepared for Life s Events, January is a good time to review your data. The stock market portion may be a little depressing; but CSRS retirees are receiving a 2.8 percent cost of living raise. Happy New Year. Visit for the latest updates on the government shutdown. 2

3 Steve Ferguson here. LEGISLATIVE UPDATE Steve Ferguson And the new year is here too. We got through 2018 without experiencing any major retirement benefit setbacks. Thank you NARFE for vigorously advocating to preserve our pay and benefits. It was nice to see a 2.8 percent cost of living adjustment to CSRS retirement pay and (sorry to say) not quite as nice 2 percent cost of living adjustment to FERS retirement pay. I have Kaiser health insurance and the premiums decreased a few dollars per month; it all helps. H.R was introduced November 20, 2018 by Virginia Representative, Gerald Connolly. The title is simply Equal COLA Act. H.R would provide FERS retirees with the same COLA as CSRS retirees. The FERS COLA reduction dates back to the FERS program inception. For more information, see the December NARFE magazine article How the Reduced FERS COLA Came to Be on page nine. The reduced COLA defeats the stated purpose of the COLA. It is intended to cover the cost of inflation. The legislation has four co-sponsors and Derek Kilmer is not a sponsor as of December 24, Please call Derek Kilmer s Bremerton office at (360) and ask that he cosponsor: 1) H.R ) The Equal Cola Act We will see what kind of legislation is introduced this year. I suspect we might be able to breathe a little easier this year; however, plan on continuing to advocate to preserve our earned pay and benefits. And remember, Derek Kilmer is a strong advocate for us. 3

4 NARFE Legislative Training Conference March 10-13, 2019 The conference will be held at the Mark Center Hilton Hotel Alexandria, VA. Call to make reservations. Mention NARFE Legislative Conference. Hotel rate: $175 per night (plus tax) Discount parking available. The WSF is offering a $250 scholarship to attend the conference. MEMBERSHIP Ralph Sanders This is the December report, so most of the figures for 2018 have been established. I will give you these numbers knowing that they don t add up in all directions. That is why Rex is the Treasurer and I am the Membership Chair. We started the end of January 2018 with a total membership of 517 and finished December 2018 with 467, a loss of fifty members over the year. The devil is in the details. We lost twenty-four members for non-payment of dues and twenty-six members transferring out of Chapter 181. The rest of our loss was due to members passing on. Our plus side is dismal at best. We gained twelve members through new membership and reinstatement, with eleven more members transferring into the chapter. We know that most of the members transferring out did not leave NARFE; they went to a National Only status. We accept that we cannot change the number of deceased members that we have. The numbers that we can and should change are New Members and Rein-statements. We will try our best to improve these numbers in the year

5 We have two (2) members who, if they have not renewed their membership, will be dropped in January: Donna Bartrug and Catherine Jett. There were two (2) members dropped for nonrenewal this month: Ken Fuhs and Tom Markus. Now for the positive side of this report. We have one (1) member transferring into the chapter for the month of December: Vernon Shook. Thanks for joining our chapter Vern, we appreciate your participation. If you have questions regarding NARFE or Bremerton Chapter 181, please contact any one of our board members listed on the back of this newsletter, or just come to a meeting. The meeting information is listed on the front page of this newsletter. If we have canceled our membership meeting, drop by our Executive Board meeting. You are more than welcome any time. Recruit a current federal employee and receive an $8.00 recruiting incentive from NARFE National. If your recruit signs up for a webinar, they ll receive a oneyear membership for $ SECRETARY Bea Bull Sweater Contest And the Winners Are: Congratulations go to Thelma Gurske-Taylor for the most FESTIVE sweater and Alan Siegel for the UGLIEST sweater! And a big thank you to Region IX V.P. Rich Wilson for judging the contest! Newsletter Insert Oops this didn t make it into the December newsletter. Please save the enclosed insert which contains the chapter calendar and contact information. You ll notice that the November 2019 meeting will again be a FEHB health fair from 10:00AM 1:00PM. 5

6 Upcoming Programs February NARFE-PAC Chair, Lanny Ross March George Bieda, President, Puget Sound Navy Museum April Legislative Chair, Steve Ferguson, will report on LEGcon FEEA Scholarship Program The scholarship program is open to the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of current NARFE members. For information, and to access the 2019 FEEA Scholarship application, go to Region IX Training Conference The 2019 Region IX Training Conference will be held Friday, May 17 th 11:00AM 5:00PM and Saturday, May 18 th 9:00AM -12:00noon at the 3 Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick, WA. The Federation is offering a $50.00 scholarship to attend the conference. Volunteer Opportunities Puget Sound Navy Museum Anyone interested in volunteering at the Puget Sound Navy Museum may contact Alexander Hostettler at or via at alexander.hostettler@navy.mil. This is a great opportunity to meet other retired Navy and shipyard workers and to give back to the community! SHIBA Anyone interested in volunteering with SHIBA may call Jennifer Calvin-Myers at Kitsap County Aging & Long Term Care is excited to talk with people interested in growing the SHIBA team in the local community! 6

7 DISTRICT IV WEBSITE Bea Bull, Webmaster As this goes to print, the District IV website is offline. Our web host, Web.com, is working on the problem but, if they don t have the site back online by 4 January 2019, I will need to rebuild the site with a new hosting company. If there is any information you would normally retrieve from that website, please request it from me via . Thank you for your patience while I get this squared away. TREASURER Rex Tauscher Our income for November was $ with expenditures of $ Our net worth as of 30 November was $29, A detailed Treasurer s report will be available at our next Executive Board and General Membership meetings. ALZHEIMER S (ALZ) Rex Tauscher The balance in our Alzheimer s account as of 16 December was $ We collected $8.00 dollars following our December meeting from Bea Bull and Ralph Sanders. We collected $74.38 from are chapter s collection of metal for our recycle program this year. NOTE: We are no longer doing the collection with West Sound Recycle at the Port Orchard site. If you wish to continue the recycle for Alzheimer s, you can request payment at drop-off and make payment to the chapter treasurer. The site is open from 9:00AM to 2:30PM Tuesday thru Friday and until 1:00PM Saturday. 7

8 Additional information on your tax deductible donations to the NARFE Alzheimer s Research fund: Make checks payable to NARFE Alzheimer s Research (NARFE is the key word and is required!). If you use the NARFE magazine contribution form, include Chapter 181 on the form. The correct mailing address is Alzheimer s Association, 225 N. Michigan Ave., 17th Floor, Chicago, IL If you mail it to NARFE headquarters staff, it may not get credited to our Chapter. SUNSHINE COMMITTEE Amber VanSantford A sympathy card was sent to Thelma Gurske-Taylor in the death of her son. A get well card was sent to Jean Ross. If you know of a chapter member in need of a little sunshine, please contact me so I can get a card out to them. If you have questions or need assistance with this newsletter, please feel free to contact me at tbkbull@gmail.com. Thanks!! Bea Bull 8

9 PRESIDENT Bill Powers VICE PRESIDENT MEMBERSHIP CHAIR Ralph Sanders SECRETARY NEWSLETTER EDITOR Bea Bull TREASURER Rex Tauscher LEGISLATIVE CHAIR Steve Ferguson NARFE-PAC CHAIR Lanny Ross SERGEANT AT ARMS William Fuhrmeister CHAPLAIN Myra Clodius SERVICE OFFICER - Vacant contact Ralph Angulo District IV Service Officer ralphangulo@yahoo.com Include the words NARFE District IV Service Officer in the SUBJECT line EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBERS UNTIL DECEMBER 2019 Steve Ferguson Amber VanSantford UNTIL DECEMBER 2020 Lanny Ross Ralph Petersen District IV VP Bea Bull tbkbull@gmail.com Region IX VP Richard Wilson narfe1404@comcast.net NARFE DISTRICT IV WEBSITE Webmaster Bea Bull NARFE STATE WEBSITE NARFE NATIONAL WEBSITE LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE SENIOR INFORMATION & ASSISTANCE OR

10 OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT(OPM) Phone: Hours of operation: 7:30AM 7:45PM ET with best time to reach someone being 6:30PM 7:30PM or at 7:30AM Eastern Time. Mailing Address: Office of Personnel Management Retirement Operations Center P.O. Box 45 Boyers, PA OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES Senator Patty Murray 950 Pacific Avenue #650 Tacoma, WA Tacoma Phone Number D.C. Phone Number Senator Maria Cantwell nd Avenue, Ste 3206 Seattle, WA Seattle Phone Number D.C. Phone Number Congressman Derek Kilmer th St., Suite 500 Bremerton, WA Bremerton Phone Number D.C. Phone Number