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RET I REE V I CE PRES I DENT ’ S REPORT
Ambassador (ret.) Thomas Boyatt
Need Headshot
My activities and the work of the staff persons
associated with retiree matters fall into three
categories.
First is individual service to retired members who have
problems with our complicated retirement system or
with other elements of the government. My colleagues
Janet Hedrick and Todd Thurwachter do the heavy
lifting here, helping hundreds of retirees through a
range of challenges from explaining how to get the
most out of their retirement benefits, resolving annuity
and benefits problems, supporting surviving spouses
at a difficult time, to the perennial complains about the
idiosyncratic functioning of the WAE system. Although
we can’t “win them all,” feedback from satisfied retirees
confirms that our batting average is pretty high.
Second, we work to preserve retiree benefits at
the institutional level, both in the legislative and
executive spheres. The major challenge in this area
during 2016 was the dramatic and OPM-sanctioned
increases (averaging about 85%) in the long term care
premiums in government sponsored programs. The
policies are underwritten by John Hancock. We made
common cause with AFGE and NARFE, whose impacted
members were in the thousands and whose financial
and legal resources dwarfed ours. We would have given
serious consideration to joining either organization in a
legal challenge but both decided that legal challenges
would not prosper.
Accordingly, we concentrated on helping nearly
AFSA also made every effort to educate members about
the structure and functioning of the insurance industry
in the current unique circumstances of extremely low
interest rates which have lasted for a decade. Both the
long-term care and health care industries continue to
be under financial stress and we see no rapid improve-
ments near term.
Finally, the Retiree Vice President is an officer of
AFSA and has responsibilities as such. He/she is a
member of the executive, finance/management/audit,
and governance committees, and is expected to
contribute to their work and perform other tasks
assigned by the AFSA President or the board. During
the past year I was involved in the following:
•
Took the lead in asserting AFSA’ statutory right to
name members (not just approve management’s nom-
inees) of the Foreign Service Labor Relations Board
(FSLRB) and the Foreign Service Grievance Board (FSGB).
A distinguished retired Career Ambassador recently
individual AFSA members deal
constructively with the problem
spikes, even arranging one-on-one
counseling with the authorized
representatives of the Federal LTC
program, to find the best option for
each enrollee.
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