Keeping You Informed Health Insurance This is a topic everyone follows closely. Where are we? We are currently in the third year of a three-year contract with UHC, including prescription coverage, and Cigna Dental. A Request for Proposal (RFP) has been issued by the TRB for a new contract to provide dental coverage. The RFP is available to read on the TRB website. You might want to know first that it is 58 pages long. All bidders must provide for services in all fifty states and US Territories. Proposals will be received and then reviewed via several steps before a decision is made in June 202 ..read more

Happy Fall There are various groups which impact a retired teacher’s life. Who’s who? SFCRTA: Southern Fairfield County Retired Teachers Association ARTC: Association of Retired Teachers of Connecticut TRS/TRB: Teacher Retirement System/Teacher Retirement Board CEA-R: Connecticut Education Association- Retired Let’s take a look at each one! SFCRTA- Who are we and how do we fit into the Connecticut retired educators’ landscape? Are you curious? Let’s begin with us and then discuss the other groups/organizations who impact retired Connecticut educators. First, we are an affiliate of the Associ ..read more

Please see the important note below from the Association of Retired Teachers of Connecticut. Dear Retirees, We are sending this out again because some people have said they did not receive the first email. Please forward this to any retired educator you know. The Association of Retired Teachers of Connecticut is now at a critical crossroads where it is important to support candidates to the TRB who we are confident will advocate for issues that matter most to all retired teachers. These issues include a strong pension, a fair and stable COLA, moving to a 100 percent state income tax exclusion ..read more

Happy New Year! Happy new school year, that is. Does September still feel like a new year to you? Perhaps that depends on how long you have been retired and whether you have ties, through friends or family, to the start of a new school year. At the very least, this feeling gives us two new year celebrations per year in addition to Rosh Hashanah, Lunar New Year, Diwali, etc., and we no longer have to bristle at the sight of the back-to-school ads that begin each year on July 5th What will this new school year bring for us? The most important change for the Connecticut Teachers Retirement Board ..read more

We are looking for volunteer facilitators for our parenting classes. We would love for our facilitators to commit to at least two classes per cohort or more if their schedule allows. Facilitators would receive the course curriculum (English or Spanish) and reference materials for the courses. The flow of the class is more of an interactive experience rather than a lecture. We want our parents to engage in conversation pertaining to the topic. General Parenting Program: SJPC runs a series of programs available to parents, moms, or dads. It offers 28 different parenting classes offered in both ..read more

TRB Information CORE-CT The Teachers’ Retirement Board staff continues a project to migrate everything to a new cloud-based management system the State has adopted. CORE CT is Connecticut state government’s integrated human resources, payroll, and financial system that will replace the more than twenty-year-old system the TRB has been using. It produces the monthly pension receipt statements you have been receiving, for example. It is expected to improve interface between the TRB and school districts, as well as simplify sharing information between State agencies. If you want to learn more abo ..read more

Health Insurance Tips Any retired members who have questions or concerns they have not been able to resolve with UHC are asked to contact the TRB Escalation Team for support by email at: HealthInsurance.TRB@ct.gov OptumRx– the pharmacy plan that is identical for both the Supplement and Advantage plans Monitor your prescriptions carefully because there seem to be shortages of particular medications. If your exact medication is out of stock, you will receive an email indicating that. You may need to seek an alternate source, such as a local pharmacy, and it is possible that the medication may be ..read more

Happy Summer! Money Matters COLA You may have heard of other retirement systems that are defined by tiers that delineate many aspects of a retiree’s benefits. While our system is not like this, it turns out that a Teachers’ Retirement System member’s cost of living adjustment (COLA) benefit is determined by a tier that includes when the person joined the system and the date of retirement. In each case, a COLA is applied if the retirement fund meets the expected rate of return. You may recall that our efforts resulted in the COLA standard being adjusted from 8% to 6.9% to match the current expe ..read more

Issue   Briefly explain the state tax deductions for Social Security, pension and annuity, and individual retirement account (IRA) income. This report updates OLR Report 2021-R-0168.   Social Security Income  By law, Connecticut exempts from its income tax (1) Social Security income the federal government exempts from the federal income tax and (2) depending on a taxpayer’s filing status and federal adjusted gross income (AGI), some or all of the Social Security income the federal government taxes (CGS § 12-701(20)(B)(x)). (OLR Report 2018-R-0271 explains the federal S ..read more

Happy New Year!  What’s new and what’s not   Dental Coverage Let’s start with what is not new. Our dental insurance remains with CIGNA. Our dental insurance cards are the same ones we have been using. There is no need to inform your dentist; keep using the card and information you already have for dental care. Medical CoverageEverything else about our health insurance is new and there is a lot that you will need to pay attention to in this transition to UnitedHealthCare and OptumRx. Note, if you received a new Anthem card, that was an error. You do not have Anthem coverage. The SFCR ..read more