PENSION BENEFITS REPORT
A vote for leadership, understanding and experience
PETER ANDREYEV
As many of you may be aware, Kevin Lyons, the retired PBA Delegate from Long Beach Township Local 373, is running for the retiree representative position on the Police and Fire Retirement System( PFRS) Pension Board of Trustees. I’ m sure many of you know Kevin Lyons is the administrator of the NJSPBA Legal Protection Plan and also the expert on health benefits for us. Kevin is active on the health benefits plan and design committee, and sees first-hand how the state of New Jersey tries constantly to tamper with our health benefits. We need all our retired members to get out and vote for Kevin Lyons. We need strong leadership and someone experienced with health benefits to assist the board of trustees that represents the pension, and the understanding of how certain issues will affect our pension and, most importantly, our members. I truly believe that once we help elect Kevin to the PFRS Board of Trustees he will make a difference and also help keep the integrity of the pension system sound, not only for the current retirees but for our future retirees.
Retirement seminar schedule
I will be conducting a few retirement seminars in the next few weeks. We will be at the Stamler Police Academy in Union County on
Nov. 2 from 1:30 to 3:30 p. m. as well as Dec. 7 at the NJSPBA Office starting at 10 a. m. If you are interested in attending either seminar, please go to our website and register from the events page.
Inspiration and loss
Last month, the New Jersey State PBA held the annual convention in Phoenix, Arizona. We had a few guest speakers address the membership on a wide variety of topics. One of the guest speakers, Dr. Bobby Smith, formerly a trooper with the Louisiana State Police spoke to the members in attendance. To give you a quick backstory on Bobby, he was a 10-year veteran of the Louisiana State Police and was shot in the face while conducting a motor vehicle stop. Bobby was permanently blinded as a result of that incident. In addition to persevering through his injury caused by merely doing his job, he also had to persevere through a lot of personal adversity and tragedy. He provided one of the most emotional presentations to our group that I’ m sure no one in attendance will ever forget.
We just learned that Dr. Bobby Smith had suddenly passed away, shortly after he spoke to our membership. Listening to Bobby’ s presentation, I will admit that a permanently blind guy taught all of us in attendance how to see. It is with great sorrow that I say a prayer for Bobby, his family and the Louisiana State Police family for their tremendous loss. May he rest in peace. d
18
NEW JERSEY COPS ■ OCTOBER 2016