Ladies and Gentlemen,

It’s that time of year again, we are planning our annual holiday party. It will be held Saturday December 15th from 1500-2300 This year will be at Fiesta Lanes bowling center. The Address is 501 W River Rd, Tucson, AZ 85704. Bowling shoes and lane charges will be covered for you and your families. We will be providing food and (non-alcoholic) beverages as well. There is a bar on site for those of us who wish to drink at our own cost. This year we will be adding a door prize. Every member that shows up will be given a ticket to win. You do not need to be present to win, but you do have to come celebrate with us to get your ticket. Last years party was a huge success! lets make this years party even better!

Recently there have been some revisions to our website (http://mypca.org/) make sure you stop by and take a look at the new site. While you are there take a look at all the benefits you qualify for through our affiliation with IUPA (https://iupa.org/) and (https://www.unionplus.org/). We are IUPA local 1690. A quick sign up process will let you take advantage of discounts on insurance, car rentals, amusement park tickets, cruises, and many many more.

Recently we have had a lot of questions about prop 125. attached are a few points about the legislation. The short story is that prop 125 is destructive for our retirement system. It caps annual raises for retired individuals to a maximum of 2% (depending of the actual Cost of Living increase annually). If cost of living only goes up 0.7%, then retired individuals will only receive a 0.7% raise that year. If cost of living increases 4%, retired individuals will only receive 2%.

Under the current plan retired individuals can receive up to 4% annually based off of investment returns.  The following is some information put together by one of our retired members (and former PCA Presidents) Scott Simmons. I’d like to thank Scott for his tireless attention to monitoring litigation that may affect our retirement system.

The chart below compares the P.B.I (Permanent Benefit Increase / the current system of post retirement raises), to the system Prop 125 would change us to, which is a COLA (cost of living adjustment).  Note: “0” will be entered for negative COLAs (2009 & 2010 were negative -1.4 & -0.4

PBI        COLA

2008      4.0          3.8

2009      4.0          0.0      (-1.4) 

2010      4.0          0.8

2011      4.0          3.0  

2012      1.9          1.8

2013      1.2          1.0

2014      3.2          1.3

2015      0.0          0.0      (-0.4)

2016      0.0          1.4

2017      1.7          2.3

            24.0        15.4   Percent of return for the last 10 years.

Ask yourself, would the Arizona State Legislature be doing this to help us; or help themselves?
The Legislature already cut spousal death benefits in half, from 80%, down to 40%
On July 1, 2018 CORP was officially closed to new Corrections Officers.
This is just one step after another to reduce our benefits and to reduce the employer’s liability.

All new Corrections Officers have no choice of a regular retirement. All they will be offered is a type of 401K. The new officers will be fully vested at 36 months of service. That means they get their half and the employers matching half and out the door they will go. Then the employer will continue to pay sky rocketing over time and shell out another $50,000 to replace the Corrections officer that just left with that 100% 401K vestment. Not bad, work 3 years and get both halves.

The short version is that our Association is against Prop 125. Just like the sign conveniently placed right across the street from the jail says “VOTE NO ON PROP 125”

We will be hosting a team for the Erik Hite Softball Tournament that will be help January 12, 2019. We will be providing jerseys for all the players (The jersey design has not been finalized yet). This is an awesome event that we participate in annually. Even if you do not want to play, I encourage you to come out and support our Corrections team!

The PCA is dedicated to representing the Corrections Bureau, and giving back to our members. We have a lot of great things in the works and I encourage all of you, who are interested, to reach out and take a more active roll in our membership. If you are interested in serving as a Steward, let me know! If you have friends that aren’t a part of the Association yet, encourage them to join! Thank you all for supporting us in everything we do!