« November 2021

From the President -

NEXT MEETING - March 9, 2022 at 10:30AM

Location to be determined and confirmed.

Note from Sue Tymocsko - Caption: I had a wonderful quick outdoor visit with Alfreda on Monday to deliver a rose bowl from her DKG sisters. Keeping you in our prayers, Alfreda!

Minutes for AREA Meeting - November 10, 2021

by Linda DeSantis

Marco’s Restaurant, Lewiston
Attendance:42Hosted by: David Wing

At 10:30am Vice President Rosita, now acting as president, opened the meeting. She updated the membership about Alfreda’s illness.

In honor of the upcoming Veteran’s Day. Gina Fuller acknowledged members who had served in the military:Ralph Sylvester, Rubin Cornelius, Hugh Keene, David Wing, & Gary Cadman.

Joyce and Carl Bucciantini gave a most entertaining presentation about their recent European Adventure that included slides as well as colorful stories.

Winners for $10 Hannaford gift cards were: Jo Dupal, Nancy Kilbride, Wendy Jacobs and Angie Jipson.

Minutes for the October 13th meeting were read and accepted.

Treasurer Gina Fuller gave the treasurer’s report.The total balance is $18,579.97. There are 101 memberships.
The report was accepted.

Holding a small American flag, Rosita led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance.

For spreading Sunshine, Cindy Peters reported that she had sent out 17 cards.

Acting in the role of AREA’s historian, Cindy explained that she has been transcribing hand-written notes from 1990’s records. She said that it has been difficult to determine who had been AREA’s presidents during that period.

Crystal Ward gave a legislative update.She explained that writing to legislators on issues is important but that appearing in person
at legislative hearings has the greatest impact.She asked John Kosinski to look into increasing our COLA cap from 3% to 4%.

MEABT was asked to look into including dental in our Medicare advantage Plan in the future. The UAL will be paid off by the State in 2028 making our MainePers pension fully funded. Currently it is at over 80% among the best funded in the country.

Hugh Keene reported that the recipient of the Leadership Award will be announced at the March meeting

Sue Tymoczko alerted us that members with a roadrunner email address may not be receiving her messages. If you have questions you may contact her using the e-mail address: area@gmx.com

Rosita announced that the theme of the retired teachers’ conference in May will be:“202 Years - Maine’s Bicentennial”. Jo Dupal volunteered to decorate a table representing AREA.

The award for the “Volunteer who made a Difference” was given to Jackie Strong. An award for “Most Increased Physical Activity” was given to Barbar Jabaut.

Rosita gave a brief history of her life growing up in Lewiston, teaching and then serving in the state legislature.She also emphasized the importance of showing up in person at hearings.

Rubin Cornelius auctioned offa dinner ticket for someone who was absent.The final bid was $10 for the meal.The money will
be added to AREA’s treasury.

Meeting was adjourned at noon.

Area Newsletter items
Christmas is not that far off. Please be aware of the mailing deadlines for cards and packages. Here are the holiday shipping dates. The later you mail, costs for mailing will go up substantially. This first group is for mailing cards and letters.

Holiday shipping dates for military mail:

For shipping to international locations please go to UAPS.COM

Shipping dates for packages are:
USPS
Retail Ground – 12/15
First Class – 12/17
Priority- 12/18
Priority Express- 12/23

UPS
Ground - check with your local office
UPS Three Day Select – 12/21
UPS Two Day Air – 12/22
UPS Overnight – 12/23

FedEx
Ground – 12/15
Express Saver Three Day Freight – 12/21
Two Day Air – 12/22
One Day – 12/23
Same Day – 12/24

A word of caution – there are no guarantees on the quoted delivery dates. This caution applies to all companies - USPS, UPS, and FedEx. It is best to mail letters, cards and packages as soon as possible.

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

from

Crystal Ward

In Augusta Inforamtion from John Kosinski, MEA

The key bill being worked on is the bill that Jan Dodge put it to require the state to set up the irrevocable trust for the unfunded liability funding the state is setting aside for the retiree health care program.  If the funding is in an irrevocable trust, our hope is that it will reduce the cost of the plan overall for the state.
The bill is currently:  LR: 2395 Title: Resolve, To Protect Funding for the State Employee Health Care Program.

Sadly, it was voted down by the Legislative Council last month but Rep Dodge appealed that decision and the legislative council will vote again and we hope they will vote to allow the bill in this time. 
 
In addition, MEA reached out to Treasurer Henry Beck to understand what is needed to begin the Trust and what the legislation needs to do, if anything. 
 
The other key thing MEA is working on is the design of a new pension plan for all new hires that is social security passed.  This is the task force that was created by LD 1105 this session.  One of our main goals of that discussion is to make sure current retirees and all vested employees are protected if there is going to be a transition to a new plan – and this is still a big IF.  The Task Force is scheduled to report back to the Legislature in February. 
 
There are other bills out there that the Legislature carried over from this year, such as bills to remove the COLA cap and early retirement incentives – but given the fiscal notes on this bill it is a very long shot.

In Washington,
The Social Security Trustees’ Report came out in June • Report projects Social Security’s reserve to be roughly $2.89 trillion – Social Security is fully funded for the next 16 years – 93% funded for the next 25 years – 87% funded over the next 50 years – 84% funded over the next 75 years • With modest legislative increases in revenue, Social Security will be able to pay all scheduled benefits for the foreseeable future.

Social Security: Potential Changes • Raise full retirement age (now 66 and 4 months, gradually rises to 67) • Recalculate COLAs • Lift payroll cap earnings over $128,700 not taxed • Reduce benefits for high earners • Make Social Security mandatory for new hires • There are several bills in process BUT nothing is moving that deals with Social Security !!!!

From MEABT
This is the information regarding your health insurance refunds for overpayments in July-Oct. Some members have already received their checks . 
“As you know, the change in State contribution took effect on October 18, 2021 yet went retroactive back to July 1, 2021.  Anthem updated their billing to MainePERs for the November premium payment for all MEABT retirees.  For members that were on the retiree health plans between July and October, those refunds had to be manually processed.  Anthem has begun sending the premium refunds out, but not all refunds have been processed yet.  The Medicare Advantage refunds will be completed in early December.

 
Information on MainePers from CEO Dr. Rebecca Wyke  
 
1. MainePERS ended fiscal year 2021 with a Trust Fund Balance of $18.1 billion
 
2. The State/Teacher plan is 82.1% funded as of 6/30/21 ( to be fully funded in 2028)

3. The CPI -Urban was higher than our capped 3% COLA  (5.4%) can the remainder be carried forward or spread over time ?
I understand your question to mean whether the part of the CPI-U that exceeded the 3% cap be paid to retirees in future years when CPI-U is under the cap.   The law governing the COLA does not provide for this.

4. This month, MainePERS is bringing a set of recommended goals to the trustees for adoption.  The proposed goals are:

1. Preservation of the Trust Fund
2. Security and integrity of our information systems
3. Cultivation of a “member-centric” organization, and
4. Development of stakeholder relations
    

The expected adoption of the Goals at this Thursday Nov. 18th meeting will kick off a strategic planning process to revisit MainePERS mission, vision and values statement and develop a strategic plan that will drive us towards achieving the goals.

Treasurer's Report

Gina Fuller sends along the Treasurer's Report as a downloadable PDF. I am including the Treasurer's Report for November 2021. The important amounts that you should note are as follows:

The total for
new dues is $ 212
donations into our general checking account is $ 485.50
scholarship donations is $ 182.50

collected for dues in the year 20-21 was $ 592

The total in our scholarship Account is $ 3,459.41

Membership is now 101 individuals. Please feel free to invite your fellow retirees to our next meeting in March.

Lastly of importance is that we have spent $ 386.08 of the $ 428.08 that we have budgeted for this year in our Luncheon account. We will need to have a vote to move more funds into this account before our next Luncheon. Marco's Restaurant announced that they will need to add an extra dollar fee to our lunches - starting in 2022. If you know of any other places to hold our meetings, please feel free to let us know.

To end: The total from all of our accounts is now: $ 18,513.58

Have a wonderful Holiday season and winter. We will see you in March.

Gina Luchini Fuller

By the way, If you would like a great beer over the winter I would like to make a suggestion. Try the new Italian Pilsner that is offered at Fore River Brewery in South Portland. It has a fabulous Italian name!!! It is named Luchini.

Treasurer's Report

The QUIZ

from Mona Ervin

Famous Movie Lines – You have the line from a movie, can you identify the movie, the character who spoke the line and the actual actor who spoke the line? This one is difficult.

1. “Here’s looking at you kid.”
2. “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damm.”
3. “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
4. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
5. “You don’t understand, I coulda had class, I coulda been a contender.”
6. “Rosebud.”
7. “May the force be with you.”
8. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
9. “Mamma always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
10. “I’m the king of the world.”
11. “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his live with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
12. “I’ll be back.”
13. “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
14. “Show me the money.”
15. “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime.”
16. “Houston, we have a problem.”
17. “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
18. “Its alive. It’s alive!”
19. “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me aren’t you?”
20. “There’s no crying in baseball.”

Answers: The Movie, the character and the actor are listed in order.

1. Cassablanca – Rick Blaine – Humphrey Bogart
2. Gone With the Wind – Rhett Butler – Clark Gable
3. The Wizard of Ox – Dorothy Gale – Judy Garland
4. The Godfather – Vito Corleone – Marlon Brando
5. On the Waterfront – Terry Malloy – Marlon Brando
6. Citizen Kane – Charles Foster Kane – Orson Wells
7. Star Wars: Episode IV -A New Hope – Han Solo – Mark Hamill
8. Jews – Martin Brody- Roy Scheider
9. Forest Gump - Forest Gump – Tom hanks
10. Titanic – Jack Dawson – Leonardo DiCaprio
11. The Silence of the Lambs – Hanibal Lecter -Anthony Hopkins
12. The Terminator – The Terminator – Arnold Schwarzenegger
13. Cool Hand Like – Captain – Strother Martin
14. Jerry McGuire – Rod Tidwell -Cuba Gooding, Jr
15. She Done Him Wrong – Lady Lou – Mae West
16. Apollo 13 – Jim Lovell – Tom Hanks
17. The Pride of the Yankees – Lou Gehrig – Gary Cooper
18. Frankenstein – Henry Frankenstein – Colin Clive
19. The Graduate – Benjamin Braddock – Dustin Hoffman
20. A League of Their Own – Jimmy Dugan – Tom Hanks

We invite you to follow us on Facebook:
MEA Retired - Facebook

OH.. and speaking of Facebook... here are the links to the presentations.  You can download them and use them to help you get started.  Remember that Facebook is always changing stuff - so keep trying.  I'm no expert, just persistent.

Passwords

Ten Lessons for Facebook

AND - Well, We have a "room" on Facebook.  This is a "gathering place" for people from the Androscoggin Area Retired Teachers' Association.  It is a private room. That means that it is open on only members from this group. 

You can request membership.

You can request membership in two ways -

1. Go to Facebook/MEA-Retired/Groups

or

2. Go to this web location -https://www.facebook.com/groups/586230592543947

We are still learning.  I check the group almost every day. Aroostook County also has a private room.  Eventually, the name here for our group will change a little bit.  I'll be sure to let you all know and the change will make finding the group easier.

Quick and Easy Monkey Bread - This is super easy!

from All Recipes -  Monkey Bread

Ingredients

Be well. Stay well.