ATTENTION TO ROLLCALL

Estimated Earnings for Military Service

Here is a link to the Office of Personnel Management Website that contains the PDF form to provide an estimate of military service. If you have problems viewing this form, upgrade your Adobe Acrobat software to version 6.0 as this form is an interactive form that can be filled out with your browser and then printed.
RI20-97.pdf or you can get the file yourself at http://www.opm.gov/forms/html/opm.asp

CORRECTION - PLEASE READ

An article on Police Longevity Compensation under the Legislative Report which appeared in the Winter/Spring 2001 "D.C.R.B. Report" misstated the date on which The Federal Service longevity law (Public Law 106-554) applies for purposes of calculating the Federal benefit payment for accrued creditable service. The Federal service longevity law applies to federal benefit payments for creditable service accrued on or after August 29, 1972 for the portion of the annuity based on service accrued on or before June 30, 1997.

Retired Park Police - Any Park Policemen, U.S.S.S./agents & Uniform Division members that want to see the Pay Bill can do so by loging into www.loc.gov (Library of Congress), go to the legislation section and call up bill #HR4880 - then call up the GPO's PDF version. You can download and print it if you wish. The part initially exempting widows & retirees has been removed (4-604 & 605), but we have to keep track of it.

AORP is active in protecting our rights in the disability retirement section of the Act. The IRS continued to contact some of our disabled retirees and demand that they pay taxes on their retirement. Most were resolved with the information packet which the Association forwarded to those who requested the packet. However, the Southeastern Regional office of the IRS was extremely persistent and in the case of a brother retired in Florida they claimed that the benefit ended when he reached 65 and he now had to pay. Our packet of information did no good and personal contact with the regional office was made to very deaf ears.

We then took the immediate legal remedy allowed by law. The brother asked for a trial, and our attorney, Mr. Deso, prepared to do battle with the IRS. When the case reached the Tax Court in the District of Columbia, the IRS folded their tent and gave up. We have now added a letter signed by the Legal Counsel of the IRS to our packet of information, which outlines the tax exemption mles which apply to our pensions.

Two matters are currently on the front burner. The first will deal with the Longevity question for those with 25 years or more of service. This is a legislative matter that will be very tough for the City Council because of its very high cost, all of which will be the District s burden to bear. The Federal Government will not pay any of this expense. We can take no action on retirees unless and until the DC City Council enacts the measure. The second matter we are currently working on with the City Council is to have Legislative Changes made in the Section of the Act that deals with the benefits for children in cases where the officer is deceased but a spouse is still living. Our Bill is currently being reviewed by the Committee of the Whole, and we have very high hopes that they will support it, and the City Council passes it. If they do, the base annuity for children would increase from $1,548.00 per annum to $2.84 1.00 per annum, an increase of $1,293.00 a year, which will bring it to the level it would have been, had the cost of living increase been added to the base over the past 17 years, a benefit all other survivors receive. The Act will also be amended to increase the base amount yearly with the annual COLA in the future.

The association s results in the past decade speak for themselves but they wouldn t have had much to say without the "Legal Defense Fund. "Yes Brothers and sisters, its time for the pitch. When you get that increase in December think about the past. plan for the future, and, if you can afford it, remember the "Legal Defense Fund" is the little engine that can and will if you keep it fueled. N4any thanks to all of you who took the time to read this and a special thanks to those who have remembered the fund in a very generous way in the past.

I wish all of you the very best of good health and happiness and hope more and more of you will attend our annual get togethers down here in sunny Florida. It is a great time for all.