2025 Documents
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Wisconsin Coalition of Annuitants
March 17, 2025 Minutes
Meeting called to order by the Chair Diane Wilcenski at 9:32a.m.
DIRECTORS & ALTERNATES PRESENT: Robert Beglinger, AFT-R; Barbara Bird, DOT; James Blank, Bay Lakes United Educators-R; Robert Brooks, Central Wisconsin Center Retirees; Sandy Drew, SWIB Retiree; Jean Grosklaus, West Allis Retirees; Paul Haubrich, UW Milwaukee Retiree’s Assoc.; Brian Holmes, Epsilon Sigma Phi; Bruce Johnson, SWIB Retiree; Rick Klemme, Epsilon Sigma Phi; Allen Knop, WEAC-Retired; Kathy Kreul, WFT/AFT Retirees; Jack Lawton, ACE; Laurie Mayberry, UWRA President; John Maydak, West Allis Retirees; Fred Nepple, OCI; Dee Pettack, WSAA; Elaine Reiter, Kettle Moraine Retired; Robert Schaefer, WI Assoc of Retired Conservationists and State Engineering Association; Roger Springman, WFT/AFT Retirees; Jeanne Stangl, Dodge County Area REA; Jim Thiel, Association of Career Employees; Diane Wilcenski, WREA; Rick Wojciak, DNR; Christopher Wren, Wisconsin State Attorneys Association; and wicoa.org
DIRECTORS & ALTERNATES NOT PRESENT: Dave Bosanko, Retired Professional Fire Fighters of WI; Ed Frank, WI Assoc of Retired Conservationists; Dick Kratz, WI Retired Corrections Personnel; Tara Leithold, Kettle Moraine Retirees; Lucrecia Mattson, UW-Eau Claire Emeritus; Jim Palmer, WI Professional Police Association Retired; Sari Simer, Tom Speranza, Retired Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin; Joe Strohl, Retired Professional Fire Fighters of WI; Clara Welch, Beloit Area REA
DIRECTORS & ALTERNATES EXCUSED; Mary Czynszak-Lyne, UW Madison Retirement Association;
Roll Call: Taken by Rick
Approval of the February Minutes: Minutes approved as printed.
GUEST: Rochelle Klaskin, Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, SWIB
Rochelle opened up the meeting to questions from the group. She was asked about how current market volatility affects SWIB’s investment strategy. She explained that SWIB’s long-term, diversified asset allocation is designed to handle various market conditions, with only 38% exposed to public equities. Rochelle was also asked about potential impacts to the WRS if the there were less employees contributing to the WRS due to federal funding cuts (e.g. university jobs funded by federal grants or state jobs funded by federal dollars). Rochelle noted that WRS independent actuaries, GRS, review the impact and the number of active participants over time. However, she highlighted that 78% of the funding needed to keep the WRS fully funded comes from returns—well above the 63% national average—while only 22% comes from contributions, equally split between employees and employers. Annual reviews and adjustments of contribution rates also help stabilize the system.
Rochelle provided a preview of the upcoming SWIB Board meeting. Approximately $36 million in incentive compensation is expected to be allocated to staff through SWIB’s pay-for-performance plans, reflecting strong staff performance in 2024 and over the past five years. SWIB’s plan is weighted towards 5-year relative returns, and over the last 5 years, SWIB has generated in $4.1 billion dollars of outperformance above its benchmark, or excess value added (accounting for all costs, including incentive compensation). The WRS retains over 96% of the excess value added by staff, with incentive compensation accounting for only 3.5%.
Rochelle previewed additional topics for the March Board meeting, including:
· Todd Matina, SWIB’s ARA CIO, review of economic trends in his quarterly investment update.
· A compliance program update.
· The Audit & Finance committee’s review of audits, including the Follow-Up Audit tracking last year’s completed audit recommendations.
· Updates on corporate governance, real estate, innovation, and staff projects.
Rochelle reminded the group that links to join the meeting online could be found at SWIB’s website.
Finally, Rochelle reported that on a preliminary basis the CTF year-to-date returns through 2/28/25 was 2.43% and was 2.54% for the VTF.
GUEST: Tarna Hunter, Director of Budget and Management, ETF
The Governor introduced his budget on February 18, 2025. It included some of the provisions and items that ETF requested in their budget that was submitted in October 2024.
The Governor included in his budget:
$14.2 million annually to replace ETF’s legacy pension administration systems. Two positions for the ETF contact center. One position for actuarial compliance requirements which would be in the ETF Division of Trust Finance. Lastly, one internal auditor that would report directly to the board. This internal auditor position would still be a classified position.
The Governor DID NOT include these items in his budget:
Items for information security and risk management which included two security operations analysts, one permanent enterprise risk manager, and funding related to various security and IT needs. Also, included were two project positions to locate the 29,000 missing WRS participants and finally the ETF request to get more autonomy towards managing their personnel was not included in the Governor’s budget.
The Governor did include the following provisions that were outside of ETF’s request.
He provided a general raise adjustment for most state employees for 5% on July 1st of 2025 and an additional raise adjustment of 4% on July 1st of 2026. Also included was full funding of salary fringe benefits.
Other provisions that the Governor included in his budget
The Governor re-instated domestic partnership benefits for all state and local government employee insurance programs administered by ETF. (This was taken out of the last budget by the legislature.) Return to Work providing that retirees can return to work for an employer and not have their annuity suspended if they have a 30-day break in service.
The Governor added transit authorities as a WRS employer. Additionally, the budget provides that Supreme Court Marshalls would be classified as protective occupation participants. The Governor’s Budget repeals ETF’s current modernization reporting requirements and provides ETF submits a different report with its budget request to DOA. This report will be more comprehensive and detailed.
Furthermore, there are a number of changes to the group health insurance program in the Governor’s Budget. The date that an employee is eligible for health insurance would change from the second month to the third month. Infertility treatment coverage was included again in the budget.
At this point, Tarna said that she was not going to go any further detailing what is in the Governor’s Budget because with the last two budgets, the legislature threw out the Governor’s budget and started from the base budget. Legislative leadership has indicated this is how they are going to handle the budget again this year.
ETF will know more when the Joint Finance Committee takes up the budget. ETF has started their conversations with legislators on this. John Voelker will meet with all JFC members to discuss ETF’s budget.
Legislative Agenda
Senator Jacque introduced bill SB35 making changes to WRS return-to-work laws. This bill provides that law enforcement officers and firefighters can come back to work after they retire for more than two-thirds of full time and not have their annuity suspended. There was a hearing on this bill which Tarna testified at. Her message was that this bill is a little more complex than it needs to be. Senator Jacque seemed open to modifying the bill.
There are many groups that would like return to work laws changed. Additionally, a return-to-work bill that applies to Protectives and County Jailers that aren’t protectives has been proposed. ETF’s position is that a bill uniformly written for all retirees would be easiest to administer. Representative Wittke is circulating a bill that would include all retirees. It would require a 75-day break in employment, a 60-month cap on return to work and would require employers to pay the employers’ share of ETF contributions (on ETF actuaries’ advice).
The Group Insurance Board met last week. They approved a couple of changes for 2026.
•They shifted the diabetes pilot program for non-high-deductible health plan members to a standard benefit.
•Cover continuous glucose monitor solely under the pharmacy benefits.
•Expand eligible conditions for medically necessary biofeedback treatment.
•Update qualifying life events to allow members to change plans when enrolling in Medicare.
•Change coverage and health plans after a death of a spouse or dependent.
•Allow Medicare Advantage members to earn the Well Wisconsin incentive ($150 gift card)
The committee will be going into negotiations and then rate setting over the summer for the 2026 plan year.
The ETF Board will meet next Thursday. The plan is to approve annuity adjustments at that meeting. They will also look at projections for next year as the Division of Trust Finance does annually.
A question was asked about the progress of the Pension Administration System replacement. Tarna reported that they are reviewing the RFPs. The plan is to do the proof of concepts sometime in fall. After this is completed, they will decide which vendor to proceed with. ETF is in the final stages of implementing its insurance administration system.
Correspondence:
Jeanne sent sympathy cards to the families of Shirley Sweet and Jim Munro on behalf of WCOA Board of Directors.
Old Business:
The 2025 Annual WCOA Conference is coming up in May!!!!!!!
25 people have signed up so far. We need to figure out how to get a promo out to our people about the conference. We should go back to our membership and send emails to each member promoting the conference and speakers. With the state of the USA the way that it is, we are having some “hot topics” being presented. A suggestion was made to send out a list of topics our speakers will touch on. Rick said that he has an E-Blast going out soon to about 450 people. He is willing to include that list in his E-BLAST. AARP is going to start putting out Talking Points on Social Security probably this week. When Diane hears from the speakers, she will get the information to Jeanne and she will forward it to the Directors.
New Business:
Medicare Letter
The Medicare Letter was mailed out over a week ago. Diane did not send out emails because she didn’t have the emails of many of the legislators. 31 letters were sent. The letters went to the state congressional team, WI Governor, the President of the USA, Kennedy, committee and subcommittee chairs, ranking members etc. of those that deal with Medicare. In the final letter there are cc’s where you can find all the names of those who had a letter sent to them. There have not been any responses.
Diane will email a copy of the final letter along with an Executive Summary to Jeanne who will then forward it to all of the Directors.
The group decided that we will just wait and see to determine what our next action will be.
A discussion to maintain our partnership with our helpful agencies and try to figure out what is being done to Social Security in terms of people, employees, staffing, and what is happening behind the scenes was held.
A suggestion was made to invite a representative from the American Federation of Government Employees Union to have someone meet with our group to inform us of what is happening in the Social Security Administration.
Chris Wren sent a copy of the letter to Dave Zwiefel who is the editor emeritus of the Cap Times and urged him to write one of his columns about it. Bob Schaefer also mentioned someone that he could contact.
Diane stated that we can now share the final copy of the letter to our organizations and beyond. She also suggested that we contact Pocan and Baldwin to see if they have received the letter and if they have any thoughts on it.
Sending the letter to Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota was suggested.
A concern that was brought up about the technology that is being used by the Social Security Administration. Their department runs their programs off the old COBOL Programing language and the new Doge employees have no idea of what this programing language is and what its capabilities are, so there is a high chance that they will muck up the systems and eventually break them.
Some concerns were expressed that the cybersecurity request from ETF was not included in the Governor’s Budget. Not having cybersecurity for our retirement system could be really messy. Tarna noted that the ETF needs its own cybersecurity to protect their own systems. ETF will have multi-factor authentication and will have a VPN to get into all of their systems. ETF is doing their best to have the most robust cybersecurity program. They are testing it all the time.
Tarna suggested that we send letters to legislators supporting Governor Ever’s Budget and adding cybersecurity financing for ETF in April.
Blair Testin Award
John Maydak nominated Diane Wilcenski. No motion was made.
Bob Schaefer nominated the Medicare Committee . He made a motion that the Medicare Subcommittee of James Blank, Jack Lawton, Roger Springman, Diane Wilcenski and Christopher Wren be the recipients of the Blair Testin Award. Paul Haubrich seconded the motion. A hand vote was taken. Motion passed.
Dee Pettack will find out the name of the company the sells/engraves plaques and let Diane know.
Treasurer Report:
Diane welcomed Kathy Kreul as the new treasurer. Kathy represents the American Federation of Teachers of Wisconsin Retiree Council. Kathy and Diane will be visiting Summit Bank this week to complete paperwork and get statements. Kathy is hoping to have things ready to go by the next meeting.
Next Meeting:
April 21 at 9:30 AM via Zoom
Meeting adjourned at 10:48AM
PLEASE RETURN YOUR DIRECTOR INFORMATION SHEET (if you haven’t already) 😊
Respectfully submitted,
Jeanne Stangl
WICOA Secretary.