CONGRATULATIONS TO RETIREE DAVE STOKES
Retired member Dave Stokes, past Chief of our Department has been appointed by the recently elected mayor of Annapolis to be Chief of the Annapolis Fire Dept. We understand his appointment was confirmed by the City council last night. Following is a link to the original:
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RETIREE TAGS (RFF)
Your contact person is Frank Homberg
E-mail Address(es): frankhomberg@verizon.net
410-255-4281 Phone
RETIRED Firefighter Tags--IMPORTANT INFORMATION
The following is from Tag Chairman Frank Homberg:
Recently, I have had the dubious honor of having to send letters to several people who have obtained RFF tags, but have failed to pay their annual dues to the Association.
The criteria for obtaining the RFF Tags are:
The person must be a member in good standing of the Retirees Association (meaning that person must have joined the Association and have their current years dues paid), and maintain that membership and dues status as paid in full for as long as they have the RFF tags displayed on their vehicle. The member of the Association must be shown as an owner or co-owner of the vehicle for which the tags have been issued. Failure to maintain membership by paying the yearly dues will cause the Association to send a notice of non-compliance to the MVA. The MVA in turn will place a HOLD on the registration for that individuals RFF tags. This means that no re-registration notice will be sent to that individual for those tags which will cause the tags to become invalid. This HOLD will be in place until the individual either rejoins the Association by paying all dues in arrears (dues for past years as well as the current year) and we notify MVA of this, or the individual turns in the RFF tags to the MVA and obtains ordinary tags for the vehicle:
Also, the RFF tags CAN NOT be placed on RVs, travel trailers, trailers, or motorcycles according to MVA regulations.
I hope that this answers any questions about the tags. If there are any other questions, please feel free to contact me at 410-255-4281 or
frankhomberg@verizon.net.
TAX INFO
The web site for information on the tax break for amount paid into health care:
http://www.iaff.org/helps
Email Reminders
Remember if you change email, notify me using the new email and not the old one. This makes it easier to confirm the correct address. We have had several people question why they are not receiving emails, and checking out the problem showed that they had never notified me of the changed address. Also contact me if you go a length of time with out receiving emails from the association. At times an address gets deleted. I try to confirm any changes within 48 hours. Also place aaretffemai@verizon.net in your address book to help us get past the newer SPAM filters.
If for some reason you think your emails not getting to me feel free to call me on 410 208 2818. (we have had this problem with a few emails for some reason). Also a reminder: Use the above email for immediate questions, problems etc.
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Below is a link to the County Office of Personnel. It contains important information for retirees. There is a section that allows you to print out change of address forms, with holding forms etc. Plus it contains minutes of Pension Board Meetings. It also has a section on COLA and how it is calculated.
Please place this in your "FAVORITES" section of web sites for future reference
Shortcut to: http://www.aacounty.org/Personnel/Pension/Index.cfm
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At the recent Florida Reunion several members voiced concerns they have with co-pays, deductibles etc. in dealing with Carefirst Health Insurance from out of state. Too a lesser degree there was also so problems mentioned about Caremark. I have been in touch with the Assistant Personnel Officer Employee Benefits about this. She has supplied me with names and numbers of persons in personnel to contact if you can not resolve the problem in a timely manner with the providers. She genuinely seems concerned about these problems and has not heard much about it. It seems our members have tried to work these problems out with the providers even when they drag on for some amount of time. Though you should at first attempt that route to solve issues, any prolong problems can be directed to the office of personnel and ask for the following people:
(This applies to in state problems also).
HEALTH CARE: Deanna Allsup or Kathleen Lalor
PENSION ISSUES: Joanna Winchester or Brenda Minatee
In the event you still feel the issues are not resolved after a reasonable amount of time you may contact either Judi Lohn or Karen Gerald.
All of the above can be reach at 410 222 7400. They also have an 800 line for out of town calls: 1-800 870 6169.
I was also informed that several people have failed to report change of address to personnel. They have had some Important Tax information come back to them. If you have not received W-2s etc. contact them ASAP at the above numbers.
The above health care information will be sent out in letter form at a later date. If you have contact with any retiree that does not have email please print this out and pass it on to them.
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Health Care Error Letter.doc
