Volume 18, Issue 9
May, 2010
MCALLEN AFT NEWS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING!
Social Security Fairness
The Social Security Fairness Act of 2009, H.R. 235/S. 484, has 319 co-sponsors in the U.S. House and 31 in the U.S. Senate, but this legislation to repeal the unfair Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision remains stuck in committee.
Education employees whose districts don’t
take part in Social Security may think that they have qualified for full Social Security benefits, based on their own work for other employers who did take part in Social Security, or based on their spouse’s work at a job covered by Social Security.
However, when they retire these educators find out that their Social Security benefits are cut—in some cases even eliminated—because federal law deems their TRS pension a
“windfall.” In the wake of a year-long battle over health-care reform, time and political capital in Congress are heavily invested at this point in the session in new battles over jobs legislation, energy policy, and financial regulation.
Earlier in the session, it was hoped that Congress might take up a broad agenda of Social Security reform by this time, creating a potential vehicle for repeal of the two offsets, so the search is on for other legislative vehicles. But that broader Social
Security reform agenda has been referred to a presidential commission for study, with no action expected any time soon.
Meanwhile, tucked away in the proposed White House budget for fiscal 2011 is a call for strict enforcement of the GPO and WEP—a proposal to “better enforce current law provisions until they can be considered as part of Social Security reform.” The claim is that requiring better reporting of state and local pensions awarded to public servants would enable the Social Security Administration to avoid “improper payments” to beneficiaries.
The budget proposal says $2.9 billion could be “saved” over the next ten years under this scenario.
Texas AFT vehemently opposes any such attempt to ratchet up enforcement of the GPO and WEP offsets, which take away duly earned benefits of Texas school retirees and their spouses. Texas AFT is working with allies in Congress to ensure that this bad idea goes nowhere.
This is not the first time this backward proposal has come before Congress. In fact, it has been a recurring item in proposed federal budgets going back at least to 2004.
The American Federation of Teachers legislative team in the nation’s capital has found no
evidence to date of any interest in Congress in passing such legislation this time around. Even so, it is deeply disturbing to see this bureaucratic proposal for stricter
enforcement of the GPO and WEP on the table when school employees should be seeing follow-through on a presidential commitment to get rid of these unfair
offsets once and for all.
President Obama was a co-sponsor of the Fairness Act in the last session of Congress in 2007-2008, when he was still a U.S. senator, and he expressly reaffirmed his commitment to repeal of the two unfair offsets when he ran for president. He said then: “Nobody should be penalized for serving our children, and that’s why I support repealing the GPO/WEP and will work to do so as president.” To send an online letter urging your representative to support the Social Security Fairness Act, visit www.texasaft.org and click on “Our Issues.”
END OF SCHOOL EVENT
Our End of School Event was a great success. The Country Omelette served a great meal and waited patiently while our election took place. Our members had to vote in person thus extra time was required.
We had one of the largest crowds ever in attendance. John O’Sullivan, Texas AFT Secretary/Treasurer, was the Election Judge. John did a superb job in supervising the election. He is also a veteran of many an election.
We had a beautiful cake celebrating McAllen AFT and chocolate ice cream.
Winners serving from 2010-12 are as follows:
President—Ruth Skow
VP—Joe Guerra
Treasurer—Anabel Garcia
Secretary—Lydia Garcia
At Large—Victor Partida
Grievance Officer—Chris Mills
Area Coordinator for Middle School--Nidia Canales
AWARD WINNERS
The McAllen AFT has won two (2) awards at the 2010 AFTCN Communications Awards Contest Winners—Class C.
In Best Single Publication—“I’m the Child You Left Behind,” October 2009—Third Place. Best Website—McAllen AFT—http://tx.aft.org/mcallen/
Awards will be presented at the AFT Convention in Seattle, Washington in July.
CAMPUS VISITS
As we have visited all the campuses over the last few months, we have taken pictures of many of our teacher friends. You can see a few of them on our web site under.
PHOTO ALBUMS
Don’t worry friends we photoshopped the icing off everybody’s face.
SUMMER WORKSHOPS
A few of the workshops we plan to offer are as follows:
· Elementary Teachers
· Middle School Teachers
· High School Teachers
· Paraprofessionals
o How to Lobby
o Math Tips
o Science Tips
o Personal Finance
o Planning for the Future