CHAPARRAL

The spring semester has gotten quickly under way and hopefully you are all coping well.  I know that for some of the lucky ones, this will be your last spring semester since you will be retiring soon.

  If you think you may be retiring within the next year or two, I urge you to seriously look into the best retirement incentive we have ever been offered here at Glendale and adjust your plans accordingly.  The CALPERS office in Glendale will be happy to set up an appointment with you to go over the status of your retirement and help you figure out what you can expect.

  Also, they are holding workshops at the Glendale office to go over both CALPERS and Social Security information.  Remember that if you have more than 21 years of service and want to take advantage of both the retirement offer and the contract language on training and transition, you must let Human Resources know by March 15.  If you are only taking advantage of the retirement offer, you have until April 30, 2003 to let the district know of your plan to retire.  As you plan to retire, take a close look at the exact date you choose for retirement status.  If you use June 27 for your last day, you will get your first PERS check in August, but you will lose three days of pay with the district.  If you choose to use June 29, you will not get your first check until September, and you will lose one day of pay from the district.  If the choice were mine, one month of PERS retirement is worth much more than two days of pay from the district, but you can decide that for yourself.  Please be sure to look seriously at this retirement offer. I personally don't believe that we will be seeing another offer for several years to come, and then it will probably not be as good as this one.  If you are fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of this offer, please be sure to let CSEA know also that you are retiring.  As a gift to our members, your chapter pays the first year of retiree unit dues for our current CSEA members only.  We don't want to miss anyone who will be entitled to this benefit either, so be sure to contact someone on the executive board.

  For all of us, this is time of great concern as far as our jobs and the future of the district are concerned.  We should all be aware of the budget troubles by now, and most of us are at least somewhat familiar with some of the cost savings the district is implementing to save jobs and classes as well as services for our students.  Everything we can do to help will be of value, whether it is turning off the faucet left running in the restroom or making sure that the photocopy supplies are not being wasted and that we conserve whenever possible.  If you can use the back side of paper for scratch (guard personal information carefully though) please do so.  If you have occasion to visit someplace where pens or pencils are being given away, collect a few and share them with your office.  That saves a few cents.  Please do everything you can to help in this tight time, and trust me when I say, "this too shall pass."  We have been in tight times before, and I am sure we will come out of this with a sigh of relief when it is over as we have in the past.&

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