A Few Items Worthy of an Update:
1) The $1000/$2000 one-time payments were made in the July 20 paycheck. Only a few mistakes have been brought to our attention and A&R has filed an institutional grievance which should cover all members improperly compensated. However, we do not have any way to gauge who specifically was improperly paid or improperly denied unless individuals specifically notify us, so we are asking everyone who believes they were improperly denied payment or paid the wrong amount to complete the quick sign-up sheet so we are aware of who specifically would be impacted by this grievance and under which specific circumstances they were improperly compensated. As a side-note, all newly accreted employees have a separate grievance filed specifically for them so these groups should NOT complete the sign-up sheet: DRS Tax Attorneys, DOT Assistant Directors, FAM 1s & 2s, DMV Hub Managers, DPH Program Mgrs.
Sign-up list for those who were not paid/incorrectly paid the one-time lump sum
2) As a reminder, the following should have also been paid in the 7/20 paycheck (for those with a January Anniversary, the Top Step Payment will be made in January 2019).
3) The $100 HEP payment should be included in the August 3 paycheck for those who have a chronic condition and met all of the required elements last year prior to the 12/31/17 deadline.
4) Tuition Reimbursement was suspended for a period of time as we emptied the funds during the period of contract negotiations, however, the reimbursements are now back on track. There is enough funding to cover the "old" reimbursement requests from 2016 and 2017 and we recently were credited with our annual contractual amount for 2018/19. At our request, the "old" reimbursement requests are being completed first and the newer ones will follow.
5) The State will be holding the Democratic and Republican primaries on Tuesday August 14th. The primaries will determine who is on the November election ballot for each party. You must be registered with the "party" to vote in their primary and the Secretary of the State's Office has a nice web portal to either find out if you are registered or to register online. Polls will be open in every town from 6:00 a.m. through 8:00 p.m. A&R has only endorsed 2 candidates during the primaries:
Democrat Ned Lamont for Governor
Democrat Matt Lesser for 9th Senate District (Rocky Hill, Middletown, Newington, Wethersfield).
Both candidates would truely appreciate assistance leading up to the primary so if you wish to assist in the campaign efforts of either endorsed candidate, please contact the A&R office at: arcope@andr.org
6) There has been a couple of questions on the newly released information relating to the SAG/Hybrid pension. This is a pension issue which involves those associated with Higher Education and does not impact A&R employees (we are in SERS [State Employee Retirement System] which is different than a pension plan offered to some in Higher Education)...so no need to figure this out, just know it doesn't involve A&R members.