For those teachers considering retirement this year or who are planning their future retirement, please read the following updates about our retirment system, CalSTRS:

If a teacher is trying to contact the California State Teacher Retirement System (CalSTRS) office in Sacramento please be advised that teacher retirement system employees are subject to mandatory furloughs three Fridays each month. Any calls made on a Friday will be logged on voice mail and the CalSTRS staff will add them to their Monday workload. Because of holidays in November, December and January there are no full five-day weeks for CalSTRS until the end of January. The best days to call and expect a same-day answer from our teacher retirement system is Tuesday through Thursday.

Teachers enrolled in the CalSTRS system who have not earned enough quarters to receive (premium free) Medicare Part A will still receive this national health care retirement benefit. CalSTRS will pay Medicare Part A hospital premiums for eligible retired members (that is pretty much everyone) who do not receive Medicare Part A premium free. This benefit expires for anyone retiring after July 1, 2012 but the CalSTRS Board has the option to extend the benefit and CTA will strongly advocate for this action. For more information go to pages 35 and 61 in the 2008-09 CALSTRS Member Handbook on go on-line at www.calstrs.com.

For those teachers who are considering the RUSD Resignation/Retirement Incentive and have made an appointment with a CalSTRS counselor be sure to check if it makes a difference if it is reported that you will be retiring Monday, February 1, 2010 instead of Friday, January 29, 2010. In some cases, it could make a significant difference in the monthly distribution.