Fellow OCAA members,
We want to provide you with an update on two items: (1) the upcoming increase in our pension contributions, and (2) our litigation against the county.
First, the pension contributions. The County Budget office has recently released the OCAA retirement rate calculator for the upcoming fiscal year. The changes in the pension contributions that occur every fiscal year are not a result of any action taken by the county or pursuant to any agreement by us. Instead, the contribution rate changes, whether up or down, occur every year for retirement systems like ours that prefund retirement benefits. The Retirement Rate Calculator found here. How much your contribution will increase is based on your age when you started with the county. The left hand column reflects your current contribution rate (titled “FY 2013-14”.) The right hand column reflects your contribution rate for the upcoming fiscal year (titled “FY 2014-15”). The last column on the right hand side (titled “FY 2014-15 employee increase”) reflects what your contribution increase will be beginning pay period 15. There are three pages of the retirement rate calculator. The first is for Tier I employees, although we do not believe there are any current OCAA members who are Tier I employees (you are Tier I if you started working for the county before 1978). The second is for Tier II employees, which the majority of OCAA members are. Tier III employees are those OCAA members who began working for the county after January 1, 2013, when PEPRA went into effect.
Second, a litigation update. As we expect most of you know, the county is appealing our PERB win. After receiving a thirty-day extension, the county’s statement of exceptions (the equivalent of an opening appellate brief) is due June 23. Our lawyer believes it will take approximately one year before we get a decision from the PERB Board on the county’s appeal. As we have indicated in prior updates, we are confident the county is not going to win the appeal. Once we prevail, we are entitled to receive compensation for our financial losses suffered from the county’s March 2013 imposition (described in detail in previous updates), plus 7% interest on those losses. We are also going forward on our PEPRA action in superior court (also described in detail in previous updates). We were last in court on that matter a couple weeks ago. The Court has asked for additional briefing, and the matter is scheduled for additional oral argument on August 1. We will continue to update you on our litigation.