4
Retirement List UR te 900;
1500 Applications Awaited;
Delays, Earnings Expiainen
In response to a request to Mr. Jerry
Sayler, Executive Secretary of the Pub
lic Employees Retirement System, we
are in reecipt of a letter from him, the
contents of which should be of interest
to OSEA members. We quote from
this letter as follows:
No Waiting Period
Members of the Retirement Sys
tem retiring for super-annuation do
not have to wait three months for
their pension checks. In those cases
where the application is in proper or
der, birth certificate or other .confir
mation of birth on file and a Separa
tion Notice from the employer proper
ly made ou t promptly, the check is
mailed to the annuitant promptly on
the first of the month when It is due.
When a member reaches age 65, the
A ct provides that his retirement date
shall be the first day of the month
following the month in which he
reaches age 65. If the three require
ments noted in the above paragraph
have been complied with, we place the
member’s name on the pension roll as
of the first of the month following
the month in which he reaches age 65
and such is due at the end of the month
in which his retirement date became
effective on the first. As an example:
If a man reaches age 65 on A ugust 15,
the effective date of his retirement is
September 1. If all the necessary con
ditions have been met, he goes on our
pension roll as o f September 1, with
his first check due him on October 1.
Y our question about the three months’
delay may have been occasioned by the
fa ct that members being retired for
disability are required by the terms of
the A ct to wait 90 days after the dis
ability has been established before re
ceiving a pension'check.
Current Payments
Currently B are paying almost 900 I
superannuation pensions, which average I
about $40.00 per month. We have 11 I
active disability .cases. with a few more I
being processed, thó>è receiving I pen- I
sions averaging $41^0 per month. I I
will not attempt to give you the ap- I
proximate ratio of disability paymènts I
to the full pension sinóe. there are too I
many variable factors in what you term I
f ull pension to permit me to be aecur- I
ate. D ifferent rates of pay, time off
from work, various contribution rates
at thè option of the employee, and other
factors make an accurate estimate; of
full pension almost impossible.-
Pension Fund Status
The pension fund now has. approxi
mately five million dolla^is' invested in
United States government bonds and a
few thousand dollars invested in school
warrants. It is entirely too early to de
termine the actual experience to the
actuarial estimates made when the Act
first became operative. As a m atter of
fact, it will be several years before the
experience can constitute a reasonably
accurate yardstick. So far we have
been able to secure interest earnings in
excess of the rate of interest-assumed
in setting up our contribution rates.
There does not appear to be the remotest
possibility that interest earnings would
be offset or nullified by operation costs.
In the first place, we are not spending
anywhere near the amount of money
for expenses, which ou r, rates provide
for such use. You m ust remember that
interest earnings are computed on the
balance in the individual’s own funds,
while expenses are a certain per cent of
his annual contributions. Purely for an
easy example, let us assume that our
expenses required 2 percent o f all the