The Health Insurance Open Enrollment period will run from May 7th through June 3rd of 2018.  The schedule of on-site open enrollment fairs has been released.  Remember, if you need to drop someone from your insurance, you must do it now.   The most common mistake is failure to remove a recent ex-spouse; they should be removed from coverage unless otherwise ordered by a court.  Children are covered until age 26 on medical and age 19 on dental (unless disabled).

The State Employee Healthcare plan has undergone quite a number of changes over recent years and is becoming a bit difficult to follow. 

Normally, the most recent payperiod would have included longevity payments for those who qualify.  However, in accordance with SEBAC2017, the April longevity payments are delayed until July.

This July we will start to see our paychecks return to normal in many ways: the furlough payments will cease in June, the retro-active pension withdrawals will cease in June, the April longevity will be paid in July, and members will receive the $1,000 lump payment or the $2,000 lump payment (depending on your step placement).  The October Longevity payment will be on time as will the January TopStepPayment

A&R has a proud and longstanding tradition of awarding scholarships to qualifying children of A&R or children of former A&R members who are now members of the A&R Retiree Chapter.  This year's scholarship winners:

HARRY ZILBER AWARD – 1 IN THE AMOUNT OF $2500

Jenny Hawkins
Parent: Susanne Hawkins, DAS, Contract Specialist

POST SECONDARY SCHOLARSHIPS – 5 IN THE AMOUNT OF $1500

Signe Lee
Parent: Grace Jiang, DOI, Insurance Accredited Financial Examiner

Reeya Khurana
Parent: Sanjeev Khurana, DRS, Revenue Examiner 3

Jenna Mazza
Parent: Paul Mazza, DOT, Associate Accounts Examiner

Angela Cappelli
Parent: Anne

Thursday April 26th is a day of unity, it is also the day of the A&R Convention.  we are hoping all A&R employees will join together and wear blue on Thursday 4/26/18 as a show of solidarity. 

Just a reminder that there is currently an on-line election for A&R Constitutional Amendments.  The voting began on April 5th and ends at 11:59pm on April 25th.  The proposed amendments where passed by committee and then the RA and still require a vote of the membership, so please review and cast your ballot.
 

Voting credentials (username/password) were sent by mail in early April.  If you lost or misplaced your credentials, please contact the A&R office via email at office@andr.org and we will notify the voting administrator (BigPulse) to re-send your credentials.

Also, a reminder that the A&R

Tier 4 Catch-Up Deductions in the 4/13/18 Check Date

The 2017 SEBAC Agreement defined a new Tier 4 Pension Plan, which has both a traditional Defined Benefit (DB) component and a new Defined Contribution (DC) component. 

Each of these components include both employee and employer share deductions. Due to the delayed implementation of the Tier 4 Plan, Catch–Up deductions have been created to collect the missed contributions for both the employee and employer shares.

Tier 4 Employees will have TWO permanent employee share deductions:
A Defined Benefit deduction and a Defined Contribution deduction.

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