SamCERA Times
Winter/Spring 2018 Active Member Newsletter
ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE:
- COLA 2018
- Active Member Purchases, Upgrades, and Redeposits
- Attention Active Members – Are you interested in serving on our Board?
- Which Member Education Opportunity Is Right For You?
- Life Happens…
- We Make “House Calls”!
- Come See Us!
- Make MySamCERA Be Your SamCERA
- Here’s to Our Health!
COLA 2018
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Thinking About Retirement? Now is the time to get started! Retire on or before April 1 to get this year’s COLA! |
If your first day of retirement is on or before April 1st, the COLA amount will be added to your base retirement amount, increasing your total monthly benefit. Check out the graphic below for your plan’s 2018 COLA %.
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Plan on making your last day as an employee at the end of a pay period, as your Final Average Compensation (FAC) is calculated using pay period end dates. If you want to be retired as of April 1, 2018, the last full pay period ends Saturday, March 31, 2018.
If you’re thinking about retiring soon and would like to take advantage of this year’s COLA, don’t delay, it takes time to process retirement applications. Get in touch with SamCERA now!
Active Member Purchases, Upgrades, and Redeposits
Did you work extra help before becoming a SamCERA member? Have you had an unpaid medical leave? Are you eligible for an upgrade from Plan 3? Did you leave membership, withdraw funds and return to active membership? If so, find out if you are eligible to purchase, upgrade or redeposit service credit in order to enhance your retirement benefit.
| Just go to the Forms and Publications page on our website and submit a “Request to Purchase Service Credit” form via MySamCERA, pony (RET141) or email: samcera@samcera.org, and we’ll check your eligibility and send you a Cost Notification setting forth the cost and payment option amounts. |  |
Don’t wait until the last minute to make a service purchase! Service purchases can be expensive, and you may need a number of months to pay for it. If you are interested in a service purchase, contact SamCERA as soon as possible.
Attention Active Members – Are you interested in serving on our Board?
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This June, SamCERA will hold elections for the following seats on the Board of Retirement: - Second Position General Member Seat - Safety Member 7th Seat - Safety Member Alternate Seat SamCERA will email a Notice of Election in March with all the candidate sign-up information and important dates. It will be on our website as well. Watch for this important announcement! |
Which Member Education Opportunity Is Right For You?
| SamCERA offers a wide variety of seminars and workshops. See below for our upcoming classes. |  |
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County employees should register via the LMS Career Site via Okta. Court employees should email SamCERA. |
Life Happens…
| During your employment, if you marry, divorce, remarry, have a baby, or if for any other reason you want to change your designated beneficiary, you must make the change officially by submitting a new SamCERA Beneficiary Designation Form. This is important if you die during your active membership. |  |
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Changing your beneficiary in Workday does not change it for SamCERA, you must complete SamCERA’s Beneficiary Designation Form. For your privacy and security, SamCERA will not disclose the name of your current beneficiary over the phone. When you retire, you will reselect beneficiary(ies) and make important decisions regarding the retirement option that will be payable to you and your beneficiary(ies). |
SamCERA’s benefits team has been traveling around the County! We’ve outreached to several departments and presented member education about our available benefits. 
We love seeing our members! Our office hours are Monday-Thursday from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Make MySamCERA Be Your SamCERA!
Want to get an estimate of your retirement benefits? Download a form? Check your beneficiary information? It’s all a just click away with “MySamCERA,” a secure, members-only portal available at www.mysamcera.org.
To access MySamCERA mobile for the first time, you will need to have created a MySamCERA account online at www.mysamcera.org.
Now MySamCERA can be in the palm of your hand with our free MySamCERA mobile app! You can find the app by searching for “MySamCERA” in the App Store (for iPhone) or Google Play (for Android).
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Once you have a MySamCERA account, logging into the MySamCERA mobile app is easy. You’ll just use the same Username and Password as your online MySamCERA account.
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To access MySamCERA for the first time, you’ll need your SamCERA ID, which is a special number created for each member. Contact SamCERA to receive help on registering into your account, the mobile app or with the MySamCERA website. You can call our office at (650) 599-1234, or email us at samcera@samcera.org . |
Here’s to Our Health!
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SamCERA’s fund experienced a healthy 12.6% return net of fees for last fiscal year. Our funded status is now an estimated 84.3%. This marks our highest funded status since 2002 and the eighth straight year of an increase. |
For more information about our finances check out our reports below available at https://www.samcera.org/financial-reports :
 2017 Popular Annual Financial Report |
 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report |