District 19 E Blast “The Bridge between

TRTA and Our Local Units” Volume 3/ Number 4 / April 2017

We Were There !!!!

Twenty of us represented District 19 in Austin: Front Row Left to Right: Ron Leiman, Mando Hernandez, Sandy Hernandez, Bobbi Estrada, Armida Olivas, Norma K. Irwin, Francis Cherry, Mary Frazier and Jackie Morgan Tomko. Back Row Left to Right: James Lamonica, Carlos Martinez, Rosemary Leiman, Jean McDaniel, Tonda Fraley, Cathy Czapla, Bea Sada, Erma Nelson, Nancy Evans, Steve Evans, Aubrey Cherry.

Table of Contents 85th Legislative Session ………. 2

District 19 Executive Board …….. 3

Spring Leadership Conference …… 3

TRTA State Convention Review …… 4

Fall Conference 2017 ………. 16

District 19 Odds and Ends ……. 16

District 19 Award Certificates ………. 17

85th Legislative Session Hopefully you’re reading every Inside Line by Tim Lee and the Texas Tribune (online publication). The Senate and the House are currently finalizing their budgets before the real fireworks begin.

Please contact your representative and senator about our healthcare and pension concerns. The Senate plan includes a high deductible plan for retirees 55-64 and mandatory medicare advantage for retirees 65+. The House plan includes a provision to use $ 500,000,000 of the Rainy Day Fund.

Senator Jose Rodriguez at 512-463-0129 or jose.rodriguez@senate.texas.gov

Representative (75) Mary Gonzalez at 512-463-0613 or mary.gonzalez@house.state.tx.gov

Representative (76) Cesar Blanco at 512-463-0622 or cesar.blanco@house.state.tx.gov

Representative (77) Lina Ortega at 512-463-0638 or lina.ortega@house.state.tx.gov

Representative (78) Joe Moody at 512-463-0728 or joe.moody@house.state.tx.gov

Representative (79) Joe Pickett at 512-463-0596 or joe.pickett@house.state.tx.gov

District 19 Executive Board Our final meeting of the year will be on Tuesday, April 18 beginning at 9:15 AM at the Ysleta ISD Administration and Cultural Arts Center at 9600 Sims (79925). This will be the first time we are using the TRTA Certificate of Liability Insurance and are appreciative that YISD has waived the usage fee for our organization.

In addition to officer and committee chair reports, we will be discussing the Masters Scholarship, the TRTA Tax Exemption Process and making the final plans for the Spring Leadership Conference on May 16.

Spring Leadership Conference Tuesday, May 16

Region 19 Service Center at 6611 Boeing (79925) Our leadership development conference is in its final planning stages and final details will be released shortly after the executive board meeting on April 18. Registration for the conference will be conducted by the local unit presidents.

Registration will begin at 9:00 AM with the Meeting beginning at 9:20 AM. Training Sessions will be conducted between 9:30 – 11:30 AM. Our Awards Luncheon will be from 11:30 – 1:00 PM followed by the District Planning Session from 1:00 – 2:00 PM.

Patricia Macias, TRTA 1st Vice President, will be giving the TRTA address during the luncheon.

TRTA State Convention Review Over 1,000 TRTA members attended the State Convention in Austin on March 27-28. Even more represented our organization at Rally Day at the State Capitol on March 29.

The District Presidents met prior to the Region Caucuses.

Norma K. Irwin conducts the membership drawing for a crisp $ 100 bill at our caucus. Becky Martinez won!

We caught up with Aubrey Cherry, Gina Castillo and Frances Cherry in the Registration and Delegates Area.

The Awards Dinner was held on Monday evening and the reserved seating was greatly appreciated.

Although Norma K. Irwin, District 19 1st Vice President, thought we might win a membership award – we were amazed to win three of the four awards!

District 19 won the state awards for:

Achieving the Highest Percentage of Members 2016-17

Achieving the Highest Increase of Members 2016-17

Ysleta Retired School Employees Association won:

Achieving the Highest Increase in Members 2016-17

And we’re pretty sure El Paso Retired Teachers Association finished a close second. Credit for this goes to Norma K. The award certificates are included in the final section.

Tuesday morning began with the Foundation Breakfast. Several members from our local units attended this breakfast and presented checks to the TRTF.

The breakfast was followed by two training sessions. District 19 members attended various sessions to bring back information for the Spring Leadership Conference.

Sandy Carlisle, 2nd from left, conducts the Historian Training Session in an overflowing room. Part of the session included a tutorial on Shutterfly.

Roy Varney, TRTA Tech Guru, presented to another overflowing room – this one of “techies”. Roy introduced us to Google Drive and explained how various apps correlate to Microsoft apps.

The Legislative Luncheon was absolutely flooded as additional tables had to be brought in. Below right, James Lamonica, EPRTA President, reviews the program.

As usual, the crowd was mesmerized by the discussion from the stage. From left to right are Brian Guthrie, TRS Executive Director; Representative John Zerwas, Representative Trent Ashby, and Tim Lee, Our Guy from TRTA. The representatives were enthusiastically greeted and cheered by us for their support of retired educators.

Following the luncheon, we headed off to the House of Delegates Session. Here is Nancy Byler, TRTA President, as glimpsed through the district signposts. 646 delegates represented the 81,876 members of TRTA.

All of District 19’s delegates participated throughout the entire session.

After the House of Delegates adjourned, we gathered for our group picture. The formal one is on the first page of this publication. This is what retired educators do when they are allowed to be silly.

After a break, a special Legislative Session was convened with Bill Barnes leading the charge. Hundreds stayed for the optional opportunity to learn the most current info about the Texas House and the Texas Senate.

Tim Lee at the mike.

The next morning we were off to the Capitol. Here Marcy Cann, TRTA Secretary/Treasurer gets on board.

The Red Shirts take over the Capitol.

By 9:20 AM the House Gallery was full. The guy at the door was definitely the most powerful man on the 3rd floor.

We finally got in as various representatives recognized and thanked us. In turn, we thanked them.

Representative Lina Ortega thanked her supporters from El Paso.

We got to see our representatives on the House Floor.

We came, we rallied and we’ll see how we did in May.

Best of all, we all returned to El Paso safe and sound.

Fall Conference 2017 Our fall conference is set for Tuesday, October 10 at the Wyndham Airport Hotel. Once again we will have speakers from TRS and TRTA plus our legislators.

District 19 Odds and Ends Cathy Czapla, District 19 Treasurer, sent a check to the Texas Retired Teachers Foundation for $ 696.10.

TRTA released the 2016 Retirement Education Report and District 19 had 213 attendees at our seminar which ranked 8th among the twenty districts in the state.

The District Masters in Education Grant process is in the evaluation stage as the final applications come in. Erma Nelson will be meeting with the committee to determine the award winner. This will be announced on May 16 as part of the Awards Program at the Spring Leadership Conference.

We will be wrapping up another year in June and will return with our officers and chairs intact for another year beginning in July. We still need a Member’s Benefits Chair for District 19 and hope an EPRTA member can fill this slot. We will have our first executive board meeting for 2017-18 in August.

In August, Norma K. Irwin will be forming the Nominations Committee for District Officers for 2018-20. The election will be conducted at the Fall Conference in October. Please consider becoming part of the District 19 Team!

Our final E Blast of this year will be released in late May or early June. Thanks for your interest, Ron Leiman.

And check out all of our awards for 2016-17!