The School Board recently approved moving to self insurance. This will not change any of the coverage that we currently have. This was discussed and agreed to by the Insurance Committee composed of Certified Staff, Support Staff, Non Union Support Staff and Administrators. By moving to being self insured it will help reduce rate increases that Blue Cross sets each year for our Group Insurance. There will probably be new insurance cards issued at a later date.
IMRF
On April 7 and 8 IMRF Trustees visited legislators in Springfield to see if Legislators had any questions about OUR pension plan. They ALL agree that it is the only well run pension system in the state of Illinois. There was a House Bill that had language that would eliminate the 13th check. Currently that bill has been tabled and never made it out of committee. The Trustees talked with Speaker Madigan as well as many other Senators and Representative from the House. The Trustees were able to visit many of those that were on the States Pension Committee.
Presently IMRF has $34 Billion dollars in assents. The fund is 97% funded. Last year the fund earned 20% on its investments exceeding benchmarks established for the year. Currently there is no legislation that would affect IMRF.
Watch for a change in the IMRF logo. The Board of Trustees approved the adoption after an extended survey of members. The rationale was that the current logo was being confused with the other state funded pension funds. Changing the logo at this time might help distance IMRF from the other funds.
Voluntary Additional Contribution Rules Changes
Read more about IMRF’s Voluntary Additional Contribution Program.
IMRF members can contribute an additional 10% of their earnings (Tier 2 members can contribute 10% of their earnings up to the wage cap) to the Voluntary Additional Contribution program. At retirement, the member can take his or her Voluntary Additional Contributions as a lump sum or as an additional monthly pension.
Voluntary Additional Contributions are after tax—they are not tax-deferred like usual IMRF member contributions. However, the interest a member earns on his or her Voluntary Additional Contributions is tax-deferred.
Although the Voluntary Additional Contribution program is designed to provide members with an additional monthly pension, members are eligible to take a refund of their Voluntary Additional Contributions before they retire.
Recent legislation, P.A. 98-0218, requires IMRF to meet Internal Revenue Code requirements regarding Voluntary Additional Contribution refunds. The Internal Revenue Code does not allow refunds of the interestearned on Voluntary Additional Contributions while the member is still employed by his or her IMRF employer.
As a result, the rules regarding Voluntary Additional Contribution refunds will change effective February 1, 2014:
Currently, members can apply for a refund of their Voluntary Additional Contributions and interest at any time.
Refunds:
- A member cannot take a refund of his or her Voluntary Additional Contributions plus interest while the member is working for the same IMRF employer where he or she made the Voluntary Additional Contributions.
- A member may take a refund of Voluntary Additional Contributions without interest while he or she is still working for an IMRF employer. The member’s Voluntary Additional Contribution interest must stay on deposit until the member stops working for his or her IMRF employer.
The member’s Voluntary Additional Contributions interest will continue to earn interest until the member stops working for his or her IMRF employer and applies for a refund of the interest.
Additional monthly pension:
When a member retires with Voluntary Additional Contributions on deposit, he or she can receive those Voluntary Additional Contributions as an additional monthly pension only if the member’s account balance is $4,500 or more.
These new rules are effective February 1, 2014.
5 Essentials
Research shows that schools strong on the five essentials are ten times more likely to improve student learning than schools weak on the five essentials.
Learn about the unique opportunity for teachers, students and parents to have a voice in improving the state’s nearly 4,000 schools by participating in the Illinois 5Essentials Survey.
This spring Illinois will lead the nation in providing a unique opportunity to deliver more comprehensive and reliable information on how to improve schools that test scores alone simply cannot capture. The end result will be a comprehensive user-friendly school report that offers a comprehensive picture of schools’ strengths and weaknesses providing a clear pathway to improvement. 5Essentials is based on more than 20 years of research by theUniversity of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research on schools and what makes them successful.
Learn more about 5Essentials.
View a Sample Report.
Return-to-Work Rules have changed for Retirees
On August 16, 2013, the governor signed House Bill 1351 into law as Public Act 98-0389. This legislation changes the return-to-work rules for retirees to require re-enrollment when the actual hours worked exceed 599 or 999 hours, even if the position is not “normally expected” to exceed the hourly standard.
You can download a chart IMRF developed to explain how the new public act impacts a retiree’s return to work.
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