Retirement: Starting With A Solid Foundation
By: Jared Newcomer
by: Scott Tuttle
Retirement. Is it the idea of no more sirens, the process of how to prepare
for the future, or the mechanism and how to pull the trigger what we talk
about around the firehouse table when we talk about our pension?
Our retirement is a hot topic now. I can remember a time when it
wasn’t discussed with as much vigor as it is today. That could be
because we have a large group of people preparing to retire in
the near future. It could be the current climate of pension attacks
and wondering if ours will be there in its current form when we are
ready. Perhaps it is simply a group of people taking a more active
role in their financial health and well-being. The latter excites me if
it is true, but whatever the case the theme seems to be the same.
There are questions and fears brought on by what we hear and
what we don’t hear.
My job as a trustee on the Board of Retirement is to provide members and
their beneficiaries with retirement and retirement related benefits of which
they have earned. The safety members elected me, but my fiduciary duty
is to all 33,400 members of SBCERA. As I navigate through the world of
pensions in my position, I try and think of how I can help the members
around the firehouse table. When I say around the table I don’t mean
exclusively captains to firefighters. I use the term to reflect our culture in the
firehouse and fire service as a whole. I am talking about every employee in
County Fire from Chief Hartwig and down who is an SBCERA member. Again,
my duty is to all members but County Fire employees are those who I talk to
and see every day.
One of the biggest things I see that can help every County Fire member is
simply creating a profile on the SBCERA website. If you have already done so,
just ignore this part, but I have had discussions with so many members that
this would have answered many of their questions. It is very simple to do.
Log on to www.sbcera.org, click member login, then enroll now. Fill out some
basic information that you already know, set up a username and password,
answer some security questions, choose how you want to stay informed, and
voila, your profile is created. Here you can see things like how many years
of service credit you have, how much money you have paid in contributions,
and estimated future benefits like how much money you’ll make per month
when your sitting on a beach with a beer in hand. In addition, you are now
set up to stay better informed with such things as the SBCERA newsletter
coming to whatever email you want. Again, if you haven’t already done so,
this is the first step in understanding YOUR retirement and not letting rumors
get to you.
has had issues in the past of teaching or sending out information that is
purposefully aimed over the heads of which it is directed. This statement is
not pointing fingers at any one person, or referencing one area of County Fire.
The truth is I grew up here, I remember feeling that in several aspects of the
job, and I refuse to do that. So starting basic and tuned to what I believe will
help members is the best way I know how to prevent that.
With all that said, I will continue to get information out there that affects
our retirement. I must stay within my parameters as a Trustee when I do that
though. So rather than speak on convoluted issues on behalf of SBCERA,
you will see me referring those issues to the experts within SBCERA staff
who handle them. This leads me to my next plan and something that will
help all of us.
In the near future we will be holding an infor