Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees (CORRE) Board of Directors Meeting
June 18, 2025

Attendees: Angelelli, Burton, Cox, Franco, Gibson, Green, Hightower, Jessen, Kibbe, Livengood, McRae, McSpadden, Petrie, Riggs, Steward, Wasilko, Whitehead

Call to order 10:02 – Whitehead

May 21 Minutes – Riggs, Approved

May Treasurer Report – Petrie, Approved

Contractor Contact Team Reports

CNS –Diane Grooms, Y-12 HR Director retired today; Wasilko will schedule the CORRE/CNS meeting; Gibson is working on the agenda.
Simmons/Golden – meeting scheduled for June 26 at 10 a.m. at 2714; Green will reach out to Burton; Gibson to send agenda.

UCOR – Riggs contacted UCOR for next CORRE meeting and will send agenda; discussion on DUF6 and the management of pension funds when UCOR contract expires in 2032.

UT – Battelle – Hightower discussed May 29th meeting with UT-Battelle who do reviews of benefits and benefit survey; they are paying attention to Medicare/Medicaid budgeting in Washington; the RHRA for next year to be in place 2027; discussion on $150K lump sum and trying to reduce PBGC premium payments, but ORNL has open plan and employees continue to earn pension benefits.
Committee and Task Team Reports

Planning – Gibson discussed potential outreach in ORNL and Y-12 Café, asking eligible retirees to join and become contributing members; reviewing bylaw and charter changes; increase the number of employees that know about CORRE.

Nominations – Franco requested names of potential Board members; send him contact information and he will contact them.

Communications – McSpadden reported the newsletter status for the Spring/ Summer edition and asks members to send in info. He discussed the difficulties of using Mail Chimp and, thus Terry Byrd is working on an alternative recommendation: Bulk mail; the recent ICORE run got 700 out of 1000 email addresses but takes much time to vette. A motion was made to suspend the ICORE contract; the motion was seconded and passed. Kibbe will contract McSpadden on Filemaker Program.

Website – nothing new to report.

Other DOE Sites – Jessen gave an update on the Beck/Wasilko initiative; discussed LLNL and LANL employees long ago had the opportunity to select whether or not to have social security deducted from their paychecks and therefore do not have social security today; discussion on Argonne/Brookhaven; Gibson researched stipend at Pantex and Fernald and spoke about new SRS NNSA Field Office Manager.

Government Relations – Cox continues interaction with Cindy Boshears. She is attempting to set up a meeting with Representative Fleischmann in late July or early August to present our proposed letter.

Annual Meeting – McRae has nothing new to report.

Pension Fund Analysis -- Gibson continues to analyze SARs.

By-Laws – Shelton is reviewing financial and membership status.

Executive (Pension increase initiative) – Wasilko reported another meeting with Beck, his future position in DOE awaiting a confirmation hearing before Congress, and continued efforts to obtain a COLA for CORRE members.

Other Business

Monthly BOD Expenditures – Petrie renewed CD which was to expire December 3; he will document all annually recurring expenses such as CORRE Post Office Box and website charges.

Gibson created a letter to Erik Olds, DOE Deputy Manager of the Oak Ridge Office Of Environmental Management regarding management safekeeping and positioning of the UCOR (former BJC workers-Grandfathered Retirees) pension and health care benefits to remain in Oak Ridge with an active Contractor as opposed to being managed by Legacy Management; a meeting will be scheduled with Olds to deliver our concerns in person. A motion was made to approve the letter to Olds; motion was seconded and approved.

2025 CORRE Board Annual Work Plan – most action items completed on time.

Independent Audit Review – John Clayton completed his review with recommendations; Whitehead will send Clayton’s review to BOD; Whitehead will assign development of the response to Clayton’s recommendations to the CORRE Executive Committee (with Mike Shelton, Chair of the Bylaws Committee added) and send responses to the Board for approval at the July Board meeting.; Clayton will continue to perform the future Independent Financial Reviews.

Work Plan – Whitehead stated we are behind on the Action Plan, updates to the Website, and working now on meetings with Contractors and Action Plans for the 2025 Annual Meeting and nominations.

Other Business – Kibbe stated her Express Scripts envelope arrived at her home eaten through.

Adjourned at 11:25 AM.