Q: Do you have any time frame on when Employees’ Retirement System (ERS) retirees will begin to receive annual increases? It has been five or six years since raises were discontinued.
—Richard E. Hyer Jr., Blairsville
A: The ERS board decided against granting raises for fiscal year 2016 in its annual board meeting on April 16, its website (ers.ga.gov) states.
Cost-of-living allowance, or COLA, increases are not automatic in ERS, Georgia’s retiree program, so each year the seven-member Board of Trustees considers whether the fund can afford to take on additional cost and how much increase (if any) is possible.
The last cost of living allowance was in 2009. Board members have decided each year not to increase retiree benefits.
The ERS chairman has appointed a committee to create a process for analyzing the fund and making an annual recommendation about COLAs.
Those guidelines, which were in use this year, compare the size of the retirement fund with its obligation to pay benefits.
If the funding ratio is at least 100 percent, the guidelines recommend up to 3 percent COLA; between 90 and 99.9 percent, 2 percent maximum COLA; between 80 and 89.9 percent, a 1 percent maximum COLA; and less than 80 percent, no COLA. This year, the funding ratio was 73 percent.
The board is not bound by the guidelines and can approve a COLA even if the funding ratio is short of the recommendation.
The ERS has administered retirement benefits for state employees for the past 65 years, and pays out to 46,000 retirees.
Andy Johnston wrote this column; Allison Floyd contributed. Do you have a question about the news? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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