March 16, 2022 ED 51 Meeting (Virtually) 10:00 to 1:00
Attended by Barb McCarthy, Jane Weihe, Deb Escobar, Bonnie Maxon, and Ruth Shippee
Welcome from Loretta Donlon-ED 51 Director
Ron Gross: NYSUT working in the world crisis
- Masks are coming off. They will be optional. They will revisit if numbers spike.
- RA will be in person. Masks will be optional. No testing requirement. There will be a socially distanced option by request.
- 50th anniversary at this convention. Movie will be shown and it will be available for future use by our council. Also 30th anniversary of Retiree Councils
- Union for Life Gear will be available at RA and afterwards for Councils to purchase.
- Legacy Fund has done well and will begin to disperse funds for Council Projects by request
- Ron mentioned importance of inclusion of all members, particularly SRPs, in our member offerings. I suspect he was influenced by Sandie’s remarks at the most recent conference so thank you Sandie for representing us.
- Many concerns about local changes to health insurance and the fact we no longer have Sue Klug, the in-house NYSUT contact, to answer concerns. They are looking to hire
- In-house concern that members may decide they no longer need NYSUT because they didn’t like how something was handled during the pandemic. There’s been a decline in VOTE/COPE which is an early indicator.
Greg McCrea Asst. to Exec. VP (In charge of RA)
- Look at local constitutions to see if the language NYSUT uses is used in your local constitution for the purposes of future flexibility.
- Provide flexibility for meetings, equal opportunity for all members to be a candidate
- Good idea to write up duties for each office
- Share updates with NYSUT
Charles McAteer- UUP Retirees around the state (6300)
- Many of the colleges are located in our locales so we should reach out to them to let them know about our events as they live in our RCs (We tried to do this at one point but it may be time to try again) UUP | Retirees (uupinfo.org)
Peter Savage NYSUT Deputy Director of Legislation
- Budget is expected to be on time and it is considered to be a good budget.
- Temporary lift of retiree earnings cap until 2024
- Shaving 15 days off voter registration
- Push for fully electric school buses by 2035 with proviso that members are offered retraining if jobs are eliminated.
- Allow use of 529 plans for apprenticeship programs
- Allow temporary certification for individuals who have submitted their documents to be certified
- Law to legislate remotely has been extended
- Legislative session compressed to Jan. 5 through June 2
- Bills outside the budget: Extending the COVID Death Benefit, COVID Vaccine leave, fix tier 6, Receivership and APPR
- Committee of 100 Virtual Lobby dates: March 7-18
- Banner year for funding and many bills signed into law
- June 28 is Primary Day
- August 8-9 is Endorsement Conference
- New District Lines statewide. They won’t go into effect until 2023. Many will be affected by change.
- More senate seats are located in NYC
- Mid-term curse….the War in Ukraine
Also heard from Swinka Richards representing Retiree Services, Bev Voos, RAC and various attendees on what is happening around the state.
Respectfully submitted: Barbara McCarthy