CORRE Blog

CORRE President Dave Reichle made the following comments at the annual meeting on September 24.

Good afternoon.  I am Dave Reichle, your President of the Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees. Welcome to CORRE’s 8^th Annual Meeting.  I am pleased to see such great attendance and appreciate the effort that each of you has made to be here this afternoon.

First, I must point out to you the signage and fire exists at the rear and sides of the auditorium in case of emergency.  Please turn off your cells phones.

I extend a special welcome to our invited guests who will be introduced later.  And, also a welcome to the media – I see Frank Munger of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Stan Mitchell from the The Oak Ridge Observer, and BBB Cable 12?  Thank you all for coming.

You should have received a copy of today’s program as you came in.  We have some important business to conduct in accordance with our By-laws – financial reporting, election of new board members and officers for the coming year, but we also want to talk with your about accomplishment during the past year and future plans for your approval.

But this is a good time for me, as your out-going President for the past 5 years, to acknowledge your CORRE board of directors and advisors (listed on the program).  They are the hardest working, and most persistent group of volunteers that I have ever worked with. Each spends many hours each week working on tasks that are very important, but often aren’t visible to everyone.  There is much behind the scenes activity on retirement issues that is constantly on-going.  There are too many individuals to thank personally now, but Fred Postma our web master, deserves special recognition for his hard work in keeping our web site.  I appreciate all the work of the Board and the support that they have given to me – and I hope that you will show them your appreciation, too.

We have made only one change in the agenda from previous years.  While questions from the membership after any of the presentations is always welcomed, because of time constraints we have eliminated the general question and answer session at the end of the program.  Instead, the board of directors will all be down front after adjournment, and we encourage each of you with questions and issues to come forward then and share your concerns with us.

So, let’s set the stage for today’s meeting.  No one needs to tell you how increased costs of living are chewing up our pension benefits.  How increased medical costs aren’t matched by any pension adjustments, while the contractors improved their retirement benefits. And, you don’t need me to remind you how DOE has not made any contributions to the Pension Fund for the last 24 years, funding the pensions of new employees off Pension Fund earnings that could have gone to retirees as pension adjustments.

But, I bet you didn’t know that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been running an experimental study from 1982 to 2007 on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) used as a basis for SS adjustments.  It was assumed that the CPI-U, for the general population, was higher than the CPI-W used for SS adjustments. (And maybe our current administration thought that they could justify lowering the annual SS COLA.)  It turns out that the CPI-E (experimental study) for retirees aged 62 and older, is actually considerably higher – mainly because of higher health costs.  So, we retirees are even worse off than anyone has thought – except we knew that all along, didn’t we?.

And in response to our requests for fair pension treatment, DOE in Washington has distorted the facts, hidden behind misinformation, intimidated their contractors, and blown off the TN Congressional Delegation.

As an editorial in the September 11 edition of theThe Oak Ridger  illustrated, a pension adjustment would not only benefit retirees, it also would be the largest economic benefit, on a short-list of economic priorities, to stabilize the local economy.

Our issues are real and our demands are fair.  We will not go away!

So let’s get on with business.  Let me introduce Paula Wright, our Treasurer, for her financial report.