PENSION ADVISOR - chipabf.org

1 POLICEMEN S ANNUITY & BENEFIT FUND OF CHICAGOMay 2015, No. 55 PENSIONADVISORP ension ADVISOR 1As health insurance continues to be a very impor-tant matter for all members , I would like toremind all members of a few essential matters:1) All insurance change requests must be in writ-ing, signed by the member. Currently, the BenefitsManagement Office of the City of Chicago requiresa 30-day cancellation notice, so please forward allinsurance change requests to the Fund offices atleast one month prior to the requested change. Asignature of the member MUST be included on therequest. The signature helps the Fund s staffensure the authenticity of the request.

2 Requestswithout a signature must be returned to themember and will ultimately delay ) Medicare changes and the related premiumchanges can only be made after the member sub-mits a copy of his or her Medicare card to theFund s staff. The Benefits Management Officerequires a 30-day notice for any member in whichMedicare will be the primary coverage for him-self/herself and/or his or her spouse. As anexample, if a member will be eligible for Medicarecoverage effective July 1, 2015, the Fund s staffMUST receive the Medicare card and a written sig-nature requesting the coverage change, by June1, ) For any members currently receiving free cover-age, meaning coverage in which the employer con-tributes the full cost of coverage for the memberand his/her dependents, this coverage endswhenthe member reaches Medicare age, which is cur-rently 65.

3 At that time, without proof of Medicareeligibility, the member will be charged the FULLCOST of coverage, which can be very expensive. Itis therefore very important that SEVERAL monthsprior to reaching Medicare age, each membermakes application for Medicare benefits and for-wards his/her Medicare card to the Fund s staffas quickly as possible. As an example, if a mem-ber provides the Fund s staff a Medicare card andchange request on July 20, 2015, that change willnot be effective until September 1, 2015. 30-daynotice is required, per direction of the BenefitsManagement Office!We have heard that application for Medicare cardscan take as long as ten weeks, so please planaccordingly.

4 The Fund s staff cannot makechanges to coverage without a member s Medicarecard and a change request. Thank you for yourcooperation with these deadlines as the Fund sstaff works to effect all changes as quickly as pos-sible for all members . EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR S REPORTTake time to appreciate the service and sacrifices made by Chicago s 5/28/15 9:16 AM Page 1By Lt. James Maloney, TrusteeI want to congratulate all our recent retirees. Mayyou enjoy a long retirement. The Chicago PoliceLieutenant s Association Web Site is undergoingchanges, please be patient. All retired Lieu-tenants, contact Terry McMahon, our retiree rep-resentative and update your email and contactinfo for the Lieutenants Association, this is not forthe PENSION Fund.

5 PENSION Fund has hired additional adminis-trative staff; we all look forward to working withthem and having them work with are some numbers, as of this article:Retirees for 2014 were 350, the total retirees for2013 were 406 and for 2012 there were of April 30, 2015, there were 12,109 swornofficers paying into the PENSION Fund. This num-ber includes all title Fund continues to work on a search for a newChief Investment Officer (CIO). We have a list ofhighly qualified applicants and we look forward tointerviewing them. I will continue in my role ofActing CIO until this process is complete. I workclosely with our PENSION Consultant, New EnglandPension Consultants (NEPC) and also our Execu-tive Director, Regina equity market managers continue to saythat emerging markets will outperform other equi-ty markets in the near term.

6 Our Fund is wellpositioned to take advantage of this Fund lowered the actuarial assumption inMar/2015 from to This decision wasbased upon the recommendation of our Actuary-GRS and our PENSION Fund is also in the middle of a fixed incometransition. We will be in a position to betterrespond to changes in global and domestic inter-est rates and other issues. We have hired someadditional managers in this recent Illinois Supreme Court decision,regarding changing PENSION benefits and the StateConstitution was decided in favor of Public Pen-sions. We look forward to the time you get your Real Estate Tax Bill, take alook at the breakdown percentage for the four Cityof Chicago PENSION Funds, you will be summer was the first time that the tax billwas shown this and others have met with many State ofIllinois elected Representatives.

7 We have answeredtheir questions and have also enlightened themon many issues relating to the Chicago Police Pen-sion. I am on a committee with the Illinois PublicPension Fund Association (IPPFA). Our goal is toeducate and meet with elected State Legislators inregard to the health and preservation of our Pen-sion I have said in the past and I will continue tostress, it is extremely important for all of us to bein contact with our Representatives. Know whoyour Representatives are, meet them at their officeor email TIME IS NOWby Sgt. Brian E. Wright, TrusteeLet s all take a collective breath, we are going toneed a number of reasons.

8 First, we arethrough election season (finally) and now knowwho will be our friends and enemies going forwardin the battle to retain our hard-earned , the Supreme Court will be ruling soon onthe constitutionality of Senate Bill 1. Lastly, weare about to enter the Spring Session of the Illi-nois General Assembly. With the anticipated ruling by the Supreme Court,I believe the re-elected Mayor will be using it as acatalyst to introduce legislation to either re-amor-tize the payment (lessen the balloon payment duein 2016 and every year thereafter) or create newmethods of funding, such as a Chicago we do not know the exact plan of attack theMayor has, we do know that he is preparing oneto put into action PUBLIC SAFETY COALITIONR ecently, the union leadership of Chicago Policeand Fire have joined forces.

9 All four ChicagoPolice unions: FOP Lodge 7, Chicago Sergeants,Chicago Lieutenants and Chicago Captains, alongwith the Chicago Fire union have formed theChicago Public Safety Coalition (hereinafter Coalition ). The main focus and purpose of theCoalition is to stick together in the battle to retainour respective pensions. Services of a financialand political analyst have been retained to gatherand analyze data to combat the rhetoric and pro-posals brought by the City and state legislators toreduce our benefits. The Coalition will be organiz-ing the data and information that we want dis-seminated to the politicians, so that all speak withPension ADVISOR 2 TRUSTEES CORNER46275_6pgNwsltr_0 5/26/15 8:37 AM Page 2one voice and one unified message.

10 The Coalitionhas decided to utilize this information to enlightenmembers of the City Council and State Legislatureas to how our pensions work, why they are sogrossly underfunded, and what can be done toremedy this going forward. Call your Alderman,State Representative and State Senator, especiallythe Alderman since they were recently elected andespecially, if they are first termers. This is thetime to get them in our corner before they turn tothe Dark bottom line, and you have heard this before,the time is ripe for the Mayor to attempt changingthe law. He is going to cry broke and could have afresh Supreme Court decision that says he cannotreduce benefits which leaves the only alternativeto change funding.