To All Fellow NCCPD Retirees,

For some time now there has been discussions and ideas running back and forth among the members of our Retirement Group regarding how we can improve on our retirement benefits and ways to fix the problem we are having with Social Security coverage.

What is the WEP/GPO?

The WEP affects public employees outside the Social Security system that receive a

government pension and also worked other jobs where they paid Social Security taxes

long enough to qualify for retirement benefits. These individuals may face a reduction—

as much as sixty percent (60%)—on the Social Security benefits to which they are entitled,

were it not for their years of public service. Similarly, the GPO offsets the Social

Security benefit to which a spouse or widow (er) is entitled by two-thirds of the monthly

amount received by any government pension that they might receive. Both of these provisions

are unfair and hurtful to public employees, and both have a disparate impact on

law enforcement officers because of the unique nature of public safety work.

1)      SOCIAL SECURITY

a.       Congress has before it HR594 and S349 which is an attempt to reverse the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). This Act may be cited as the `Social Security Fairness Act of 2003'.

b.      Should we ask the Delaware General Assembly and New Castle Council to help us find a solution? So far, neither FOP Lodge 5 nor the State FOP Lodge seems to have any direction in this matter.

c.       Brothers Ken Bartholomew and George Freebery submitted an idea to the FOP Lodge 5 contract committee, that, because in 1984, the Federal Government had offered New Castle County the chance to contribute into the Social Security thus allowing us to retain all our benefits and not be influenced by the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) or the Government Pension Offset (GPO). However, that administration chose not to even consider or offer this option to us. The County has saved millions of dollars by not having us contribute the approximately 6% of the Police Officer’s salary. The County does pay Social Security for other County employees, but not for the Police Officers. Therefore, the idea was sent forth for the County to cover our “Medifill” coverage in lieu of compensation. The failure to allow us the chance to join appears to be rather “self-serving” on the past County’s administration's part.

2)      SURVIVORS BENEFITS

a.       The present system is for your widow/dependants to get 30% of your base salary. Our proposal is to bring this benefit up to 50% of your pension as it is for all other pensions offered by the County. This would benefit the retired officers after approximately 25 years of service.

3)      MEDICAL COVERAGE

a.       The past administration under Gordon/Freebery took our Retiree group out of the total FOP membership bargaining unit and put us into a smaller, separate body, thus our rates increased. The “Family Group” plan skyrocketed and we don’t know how many of our Retirees were effected by the increase. (As of 6/1/05, there are 177 Retired County Officers)  It’s important for us to know how many are involved and in what category they are placed but the County Human Recourses won’t tell us.  With a larger number of members in one combined group it would have given us more of a discount from the Health Plans. It is also noteworthy that we have never had a Retiree on the County Medical Committee. Do we want one?

4)      H.R. 218 – “LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER’S SAFETY ACT of 2004”

a.       After much discussion with Chief McAllister, a policy has been adapted for the compliance of  HR218 for all County Police Retirees. This new County policy will allow Retirees to qualify with the NCCPD and they will issue us new Retiree ID cards with the official notice of HR218 compliance. There will be no charge or expense to the Retiree except for the Retiree supplying his / her own ammunition (50 rounds) and passport photo (however, if you don’t have one, I can digitally photograph each Retiree at the time of qualifying at the range and have the picture and signed ID laminated before leaving the range). At present we are required to shoot once a year. We are attempting, with the help of Senator Biden, Carper and Representative Castle, to have the law, for the “yearly requirement”, changed to “once every three years” in the future.

5)      publish  Lodge 5 "members of the various COMMITTEES’ – Many questions get raised and we have no “directory” to go to for committee contact. That information should be on the FOP web-site. (www.defoplodge5.org)

6)      PUT A POLICE RETIREE ON THE PENSION BOARD – We really need someone to represent the Retirees specifically and someone that will report back to us monthly, after the Pension Board meetings, as to any policy changes or Retiree affected issues. There are two avenues in place at this time to place a representative on the Board.

a.       One is by the vote of our FOP members at a meeting for three candidate names, those three names are submitted to the County Executive and he pick’s one of them to represent the Police Dept. on the Pension Board..

b.      The second is that the County Council pick’s one person to represent the entire group of New Castle County Retirees.  The Police Dept. has a representative, Lt. Bill Hardin, but we don’t hear from him at the meetings either. We have requested at many previous meetings that, if the president can get a monthly report from it’s representative, that it is put on Lodge 5’s FOP web-site, but we have had little success in getting that to happen. Maybe we should approach Council Executive Paul Clark and request that this monthly report be put on the County web-site in a secure, password protected area if need be. Do you think we should approach County Council with a request that their appointed Retiree representative be one of our Retirees? I’m sure we have someone in our group that would be competent enough to take an active part in the Pension Board.

This information/bulletin is being put forth to stimulate conversation and input from our Retirees. These items cover all of us and should be a matter of utmost concern.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail any of our Alumni Board of Directors.