Legislators began the week with a busy three days of committee meetings and votes. The week stalled abruptly due to the death of Rick Moore, a King’s Mountain councilman and father to House Speaker Tim Moore. The Senate held committee meetings Tuesday but canceled meetings Wednesday and Thursday, as the late Mr. Moore’s funeral was held Wednesday, May 29. The House canceled its week Tuesday, including voting sessions previously scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
COLAs
Currently, there are three bills appropriating both a percentage cost of living adjustment (COLA) and a lump sum appropriation. SB 805 and House companion bill 934, “Make State Employment Great Again”, has a one-time, $100,000,000 bonus line item for retirees S805v1.pdf (ncleg.gov); H934v1.pdf (ncleg.gov). House Bill 930 H930v1.pdf (ncleg.gov) provides a 3 percent recurring adjustment for both state and local retirees, with a total price tag of $231,000,000. All three bills have passed first reading and are currently scheduled in the respective chamber’s rules committees.
Other Bills Affecting Retirees
Last week, three bills pertaining to retirees passed two committees and the House, with one sent to the Senate by special messenger. Two of the bills were technical. The other, HB 1020, Retirement Administrative Changes Act of 2024, has varied changes in current retirement policy. This includes expanding eligibility for participation in the state’s supplemental retirement plan (401k), tightening penalties for employers that submit late contributions, and ending retirement payments for persons also receiving subsequent severance.
In its original form, Section V of the bill pertained to tightening payroll and pension deduction requirements for both retiree and active associations, sunsetting groups that had: a) membership of less than 2,000 and b) had not deducted in December 2023. The NCRGEA Government Relations team and others worked together to have this language stricken from the bill. The bill is now in Rules and Operations and its latest edition may be found here: H1020v3.pdf (ncleg.gov).
House Bill 237, “Unmask Mobs and Criminals,” dramatically changed form from its original House version, only to have the House non-concur when the bill returned from Senate passage. While many provisions of the bill returned masking policy back to pre-COVID status, opponents of the bill say the bill reaches too far, restricting masks for persons with health issues. The bill is now considered dead, with opposition from both parties.
Another healthcare bill passed the Senate Healthcare Committee recently, and now rests in Senate Finance. HB 681: Healthcare Flexibility Act H681v2.pdf (ncleg.gov) originally passed the House in 2023 with unanimous, bipartisan support. Its latest version includes revised physician interstate licensure compact language and adds other healthcare policy priorities of the Senate.
These include:
• Ability for nurse practitioners with 4,000 hours of practice experience to be eligible to apply for full practice authority. • Prohibition of facility fees for treatments performed in a non-hospital setting.
While running skeletal sessions for the remainder of the week, the legislature will fully return Monday, June 3.
by Attorney General Josh Stein | Spring 2024 Living Power Magazine
Relationships bring joy and connection—but unfortunately, scammers love to prey on other people’s hope and happiness. They are adept at using sweetheart scams to rob people of their hard-earned money. The “sweetheart scam” is one of the most widely utilized modes of preying upon a victim for financial gain. In 2020, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received reports from 6,817 elderly victims who experienced over $281 million in losses to confidence fraud and romance scams. In 2023, we received 71 sweetheart scam complaints representing more than $2.3 million in total losses.
People make new friends and and dates online—that is part of life in 2024. But if you’re connecting with someone online, be careful. The person on your screen might be an imposter. In sweetheart scams, scammers often pretend to be someone you already know or someone you’re likely to connect with because of their appearance or shared interests. They’ll use these connections to start to form a bond with you, but only to steal your money.
Often, the person will claim to live overseas and have a good reason for why they are unable to see you in person. They might say they are a US citizen, but they are stationed on an oil rig, a military base, or other convenient excuse. They are overly friendly and often quick to profess their love or admiration, and they’ll message you often and be very communicative.
They won’t ask you for money at first. They’ll wait a few months until they’ve established the relationship, and then they’ll tell you about a problem they’re having that prevents them from coming back to the country. They might be dealing with a medical emergency, have a family member with health issues, not be able to afford lights, or some other problem. Whatever the reason, it will require money to solve, and they’ll ask you to send it. They’ll make promises about visiting you and getting married once they have the money and can resolve their problem.
Have your guard up when you’re talking to people online
Try to verify who they are before you start communicating with them. Remember that if an online love interest ever asks you for money, it’s almost always a scam. And if they ask you to pay with a gift card, wire transfer, or through cryptocurrency, it’s certainly a scam. Don’t make that payment or investment.
Unfortunately, sweetheart scams can be a gateway to other scam attempts. If a scammer can get money from you once, they will likely try to get money from you again. It’s important to put a stop to these scams the moment you become concerned—talk to someone you trust before you send money, or call your bank or my office at 1-877-5-NO-SCAM.
Sweetheart scams can be especially cruel because they don’t just target your wallet—they target your heart. It might be hard to talk about being the victim of a scam because you’re dealing with grief and heartbreak, as well. But scammers try to target all of us, and there’s no reason to be embarrassed over the actions of a criminal. Let my office know if you think you or someone you know has been the victim of a sweetheart scam by calling us at 1-877-5-NO-SCAM or online at NCDOJ.gov/complaint.
Don’t let a scammer break your bank account or your heart.
Bennett Place docent Fred Tetterton talks to NCRGEA’s District 4 members about the events during the largest surrender of Confederate forces that ended military actions during the Civil War.
With a chorus of thousands of cicadas singing in the background, 47 NCRGEA members from District 4 toured the site where the last surrender of a major Confederate army in the American Civil War, Bennett Place.
The tour, organized by District 4’s Community Advisory Board (CAB) and coordinated by co-chair’s Ed McBride and Regi Taylor, was part of NCRGEA’s CAB Community Engagement program.
District 4 co-chair Ed McBride (standing), talks with NCRGEA members during lunch at the district’s recent Community Engagement gathering at Bennett Place in Durham.
Members learned about the Bennett family and how their home became the site of Confederate General Johnston’s surrender of more than 89,000 soldiers to Union General Sherman effectively ended the war. This all took place after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.
NCRGEA District 4 members watch a film at Bennett Place Museum about the surrender of the largest Confederate force during the district’s recent Community Engagement event.
If you are an NCRGEA member and have an idea on what your district could do, contact Deryl Davis Fulmer, NCRGEA Community Liaison. You can find out about activities under the “Districts” webpage.
NCRGEA’s Deryl Davis-Fulmer, standing, talks with District 4 members during lunch at the district’s recent Community Engagement gathering at Bennett Place in Durham. Bennett Place was the site of the largest surrender of Confederate forces and marked the end of military actions during the Civil War.
Of all the post-retirement activities and hobbies, gardening ranks among the top pursuits of those with more time to spend on the things they love—and no wonder. A study published last year in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health found people who garden, particularly in community gardens, increased their overall well-being by exercising more, eating more fiber, and staying connected to others in their community. A 2018 study from the journal Clinical Medicine found that gardening reduces stress and can also lower the risk of developing dementia.
The benefits of gardening, however, go far beyond the personal. Some have found ways to garden that also benefit the environment, those with food insecurity, and the community at large.
Master Plan
In 1979, NC State Extension launched its volunteer initiative to help guide homeowners in making environmentally sound decisions in their landscapes. Now 45 years later, the NC State Extension Master GardenerSM program has grown to an extensive network with outposts in every county in the state, with volunteer opportunities in 75 counties.
“These are programs that engage people from the community—local citizens and residents and people who are interested in learning more and also want to volunteer,” says Charlotte Glen, NC State Extension Master Gardener program manager.
The Extension Master Gardener program isn’t simply a horticulture class. While participants do learn about gardening best practices during their training—which includes 40 hours of instruction and a 40-hour internship—those skills simply serve as the basis of the real work done by volunteers.
Once trained through their local extension office, volunteers begin working in their communities on projects that include installing plant labels with QR codes linked to the Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox—the extension’s plant database—in demonstration gardens. Both those initiatives, alongside workshops and other educational outreach, are designed to educate the community about growing their own food, as well as planting gardens that benefit local ecosystems.
“With our Extension Master Gardener program, we’re focusing on home gardening,” Glen says. “The goal is improving quality of life and helping people have access to fresh fruits and vegetables and helping people take care of their yard in a way that protects the environment.”
Extension Master Gardener volunteers also have been instrumental in setting up and maintaining community gardens across the state. These gardens, along with home gardening initiatives, have become an important part of the Extension’s work to reduce food insecurity in North Carolina.
“There are a lot of different activities across the state around helping people grow their own food, whether it’s starting a garden in their yard, being more successful with their gardening, or working with community gardens,” Glen says. “It’s building local production so people don’t have to rely on food being shipped in from somewhere else to a grocery store that may be miles from their home.”
Extension Master Gardener volunteers Ann Farnham (left) and Susan Levy (right) lead therapeutic horticulture activities for groups at the Siler City Center for Active Living. Photos by Steve Broscious
Some Extension Master Gardener volunteers also operate therapeutic gardening programs, designed to improve both physical and mental health in their community. “They’re helping people through gardening, basically helping them improve their health and wellbeing,” Glen says. “The program helps whether it’s physically through the exercise of gardening, or mentally, because there are so many benefits of being around plants.”
Master Gardener volunteers also sometimes get to be a part of statewide research initiatives conducted by NC State, such as a recent study that explored how managing perennial stems increases the ability of residential landscapes to provide habitat for some pollinators, such as bee and wasp species that live and reproduce in plant stems.
“We had volunteers in different counties across the state collecting stems and sending them to some of our researchers on campus, and lo and behold, they found pollinators in them,” Glen says. “And that’s the land grant’s mission—to do research and then through Extension, take that information out to the people and make a difference.”
Glen says the Extension Master Gardener program offers a wide range of roles across the state, and no matter the job, those who give their time can be certain they’re making a difference in not only their community, but the world. “It’s not just a gardening class,” she says. “It’s for people who want to learn about gardening, and then use that knowledge to help others.”
To learn more about the NC State Extension Master Gardener volunteer program, visit EMGV.CES.NCSU.edu.
A Fresh Perspective
During her tenure as principal of a K–12 school that catered to students with significant intellectual and physical disabilities, Kelli Howe knew she wanted to enact programs that would prepare these kids to obtain jobs upon graduation.
Outside the facility, several old greenhouses stood in a state of disrepair, remnants of a horticulture program the school offered during the 1970s and ‘80s. Howe thought they could be salvaged and obtained funding from the school board to refurbish them. Around that time, an acquaintance brought Howe an article about the Charlotte-based nonprofit 100 Gardens, which builds and operates aquaponic gardens in schools, prisons, and communities in need.
“I learned about aquaponics and it seemed to be the perfect fit because it’s very repetitive, predictable, and schedule-driven, which is what a lot of special needs students, especially students with autism, need,” she says.
Aquaponics is a farming method that raises edible freshwater fish and vegetables together in a symbiotic environment. A tank holds fish, such as tilapia or catfish, which provide natural fertilizer for vegetables that are rooted in water in a separate tank. The vegetables absorb nutrients from that fertilizer, providing clean water that goes back to the fish.
“We started off in a very small way—we raised about $2,500 and got one very small table, one tank, and seven fish,” Howe says. “We trialed that for about five months, and the kids loved it.”
That first tank led to a larger enterprise at the school that still operates today and provides all the lettuce for a local restaurant. After Howe retired, she joined the board of 100 Gardens and now works with the nonprofit as education director to install aquaponic systems in schools and other locations across North Carolina. She says she enjoys the work she does with 100 Gardens not only because it’s fun, but also because it gives her a chance to enact change that can potentially improve our environment.
“It’s a relationship—aquaponics is a symbiotic system, and that’s the same way I’ve always felt about the earth,” she says. “These gardens are a way to show people their impact on the earth and how if we don’t improve our situation, we will no longer be able to garden outside. It just gives a different perspective.”
Teri Stanley has always loved gardening. Growing up in a farming family, she developed an early appreciation for cultivating plants, be they vegetables or flowers. After retiring from Nash County Schools, Stanley dedicated more time to gardening, and she found she liked starting from scratch with seeds rather than buying plants.
“I like flowers, and it’s nice to plant from seeds, so you know what you’re getting,” she says. “I also like to have fresh vegetables—it’s nice to go in the yard and pick things and know where they came from.” While the growing season is pretty long in North Carolina, Stanley says you have to start planting prior to the last frost to have flowers and vegetables—which can take months to grow—ready when summer hits. So she devised a way to recycle items from her home to create mini-greenhouses for seedlings.
Stanley uses empty plastic juice bottles and milk jugs filled with dirt to plant her seeds, putting them outside in her raised beds to grow. She says not only do the containers protect the tender sprouts from the cold, bugs, and birds, but they also facilitate a more conducive growing environment than indoors.
“When you grow seeds inside, they get kind of leggy, and this keeps them from getting leggy,” she says. “Plus, they are more acclimated to being outside, so it’s easier to transplant them from the container.”
Stanley says her homemade greenhouses allow her to garden not only more successfully, but more sustainably, as well. And she says this method reduces the investment in planting a garden, making it accessible to just about anyone.
“I try to recycle as much as I can,” she says. “And with that and a packet of seeds, even if you don’t have good luck with your plants, you’re wasting maybe a dollar or 50 cents. But I promise you, if those seeds do come up, they will make you feel so good.”
by Dr. Michael Taylor | Spring 2024 Living Power Magazine
Desire to Serve Others
The Japanese have a concept called IKIGAI (ee-kee-gay), which loosely translates into the happiness of always being busy doing something you love. IKIGAI combines your passion (what you love doing) with your vocation (what you are good at), with what the world needs (the job market), and finally, what you can get paid to do!
As retirees, we all followed different paths into the public sector. Maybe it was a family history of public service or perhaps somebody who inspired us. A teacher told me a kind and caring high school teacher inspired her to spend a career in the classroom. As retired public servants, we are fortunate because there were so many opportunities in the public sector that allowed us to find a calling that fits our passion and our mission.
One size does not fit all when it comes to our enthusiasm for public service, so the Japanese concept of IKIEGA sounds right. In the days of black-and-white TV, Frank Lovejoy was the lead detective in a crime drama called “Naked City.” No, it was not a show about a nudist colony; instead, it was a story about crime in a city with eight million people. The show opened with, “There are eight million stories in the naked city.” There are that many stories and more about why our members devoted their careers to public service.
One association member, who served in county government, explained it this way: “This was an opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives and to help provide them with opportunities to be successful. And not just individuals, but the job impacted the quality of life in entire communities.”
Another retiree, who worked in technology in county government, was inspired by her father to go into public service. She explains she was a second-generation public servant. “My father was a postmaster, and I grew up watching his devotion to serving the public.”
Family played a role in the decision of another NCRGEA member who was a social worker. “Having experienced a challenging childhood with divorced parents and relocation of the family at a critical age for me, I felt the best way to help children and families in crisis was through social work. The reward was certainly not financial but absolutely the satisfaction of enhancing healthy families.”
Still, another member who retired from the community college system explained it this way. “I have loved every aspect of my career because I was helping to build something or helping people have a better quality of life.”
And finally, a public education retiree noted his grandfather was a Chief of Police, and his mother was a first-grade teacher. He explained, “Those of us who began work in the sixties understood the theme of the time was more about ‘we’ than ‘me.’
That’s what public servants do; they aspire to help the ‘we,’ WE wanted to help.”
President’s Path
As for me, the road began as a student at Lenoir Community College in Kinston, where a group of dedicated and hard-working faculty and staff convinced a kid who graduated from high school in half of the class that made the top half possible, he was capable of so much more. Not only did I get my first degree there, but the desire to be like those who inspired me. This led to a 32-year career in our great community college system.
NCRGEA has over 65,000 members. If I could talk to all of you, I am certain I would hear many different stories about the roads you followed into public service. Yes, different stories, but somewhere in each of those stories would be the same passion to serve others, to make a difference. As one person I spoke with said, “My job was a higher calling.”
One of my duties as President of NCRGEA is to pen a column for every edition of Living Power. This is my final column, as my two-year term as NCRGEA president is over in June. During these two years, I have had a chance to visit with many of you at district conferences (Winston-Salem, Hendersonville, Shelby, Durham, Fayetteville, Morehead City, Greenville, Concord, and Raleigh) and at our legislative days in Raleigh, and even on Zoom. It has been an honor to represent such a great group of people who have dedicated their careers to the service of others.
In thinking about the subject matter for this final column, I considered several topics, including all the changes at your association over the past two years, along with the challenges we face as an organization. But finally, I thought the best topic would be to consider exactly what we all shared during our careers: a desire to serve others.
NCRGEA held our 2024 Spring Conference in Raleigh at the McKimmon Center April 1 and April 2, 2024. We enjoyed our guest presentation by current Treasurer, Dale Folwell, who also provided attendees with cards directing them to find Unclaimed Property at NC Cash.
Click the button below for his video presentation.
Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley today announced he is taking four vital steps to immediately address overpayment issues customers and the agency have experienced. Commissioner O’Malley testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (excerpt):
“For 88 years, the hard-working employees of the Social Security Administration have strived to pay the right amount, to the right person, at the right time. And the agency has done this with a high degree of accuracy over a massive scale of beneficiaries. But despite our best efforts, we sometimes get it wrong and pay beneficiaries more than they are due, creating an overpayment.
When that happens, Congress requires that we make every effort to recover those overpaid benefits. But doing so without regard to the larger purpose of the program can result in grave injustices to individuals, as we see from the stories of people losing their homes or being put in dire financial straits when they suddenly see their benefits cut off to recover a decades-old overpayment, or disability beneficiaries attempting to work and finding their efforts rewarded with large overpayments. Innocent people can be badly hurt. And these injustices shock our shared sense of equity and good conscience as Americans.
We are continually improving how we serve the millions of people who depend on our programs, although we have room for improvement, as media reports last fall revealed. We have also embarked upon a deep dive into the extent of the overpayment problem at Social Security, the root causes of these administrative errors, and the steps we can take as an agency to address these individual injustices.
Our deeper understanding of the complexities of this problem has set us on the following course of action:
Starting next Monday, March 25, we will be ceasing the heavy-handed practice of intercepting 100 percent of an overpaid beneficiary’s monthly Social Security benefit by default if they fail to respond to our demand for repayment. Moving forward, we will now use a much more reasonable default withholding rate of 10 percent of monthly benefits — similar to the current rate in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.
We will be reframing our guidance and procedures so that the burden of proof shifts away from the claimant in determining whether there is any evidence that the claimant was at fault in causing the overpayment.
For the vast majority of beneficiaries who request to work out a repayment plan, we recently changed our policy so that we will approve repayment plans of up to 60 months. To qualify, Social Security beneficiaries would only need to provide a verbal summary of their income, resources, and expenses, and recipients of the means-tested SSI program would not need to provide even this summary. This change extended this easier repayment option by an additional two years (from 36 to 60 months).
And finally, we will be making it much easier for overpaid beneficiaries to request a waiver of repayment, in the event they believe themselves to have been without any fault and/or without the ability to repay.
Implementing these policy changes — with proper education and training across the people, policies, and systems of the agency — is an important but complex shift. And we are undertaking that shift with urgency, diligence, and speed.
I look forward to working with Members to discuss ideas that could address the root causes of overpayments.”
Social Security launched a comprehensive review in October 2023 of agency overpayment policies and procedures to address payment accuracy systematically. (See Learn about Overpayments and Our Process | SSA and Press Release | Press Office | SSA). These changes are a direct result of the ongoing review. Additionally, the agency recently announced it is working to reduce wage-related improper payments by using its legal authority to establish information exchanges with payroll data providers that will significantly reduce the number of improper payments, once implemented. (See Press Release | Press Office | SSA for more information). The agency will continue examining programmatic policy and making regulatory and sub-regulatory changes to improve the overpayment process. More details on these updates will be shared as they become available.
With Association members who range from the technologically savvy to those who have limited interactions with computers or mobile devices, NCRGEA has committed itself to a hybrid communication format – print and electronic – to address all member needs.
Why Facebook?
Our feedback reveals that Facebook is the social media of choice for our retired members. Consequently, if you’re on Facebook and not following the NCRGEA Facebook page, don’t miss an opportunity to stay up-to-date on news and events impacting members. Our page features breaking information, details about health benefits, special events, and more.
Video Tutorials: How to Follow the NCRGEA Page
To make it easy, the Association has created two tutorials – one for our desktop/laptop users and another for those who prefer to use mobile devices.
Computer/Laptop Browsers
Click here to view a video tutorial for desktop and laptop computer browsers.
Mobile Devices
Click here to view a video tutorial for mobile devices.
Issues with Video Quality?
Occasionally, some computers and other devices may deliver a lower-quality video playback due to YouTube Settings. We have created this step-by-step document for your convenience on how to change that setting to achieve a better experience.
NCRGEA’s Local Outreach was back on the road in September and October, and we held seven meetings throughout the state to provide information about open enrollment. As you all know, this is a very busy and sometimes confusing time with questions about medical, dental, and vision plans. Our goal was to provide members with helpful resources they may need to navigate the process.
Our meetings included representatives from Seniors’ Health Insurance Information Program (SHIIP), Humana, and our partner, AMBA. We value these relationships and the help they provide to the retirees in our state. All who attended said they learned something beneficial and enjoyed the meetings.
Please plan to attend future events, and be on the lookout for all the ways we communicate upcoming meetings:
Online (www.ncrgea.com) and phone (919-834-4652) registration options
Email reminders for those who register
Our next meetings will be held in the spring of 2024 at a location near you. Check out the January edition of Living Power for dates, times, and locations, or go to our website for meeting details and how to register. You can also reach out if you have a group of state or local retirees and would like us to plan a meeting in your area. We’d be happy to arrange one!