Meet the New CFO:

Lee Hullinger

Lee Hullinger, the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) joined the Division in April.

He selected the Division of Retirement and Benefits because it was appealing to find a leadership team with a “can-do” attitude. He was also pleased to find a great overall fit for his background, experience and personal interests. Lee looks forward to fulfilling the Director’s and Deputy Director’s expectations of his role within the Division.

Lee’s experiences include fifteen years serving as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in the public and private sectors. He has spent the past six years with the State of Oregon in the Oregon State Hospital System and at Health Share of Oregon, the state’s largest Coordinated Care Organization, formed to improve the quality and cost of healthcare.

Lee was raised on a cattle ranch in Nebraska and earned degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His degrees include a Master’s in Business Administration with a major in Finance, a Master’s in Actuarial Sciences, and a Bachelor’s in Agriculture. His agricultural experiences helped him learn the importance of discipline and hard work at a very early age. He has used these character-building experiences as building blocks throughout his life and professional career.

Lee enjoys spending free time in the outdoors with his family. He and his wife, Rebecka, enjoy hiking, fishing, exploring, and playing chess. The fact she beats him 95% of the time proves she is lucky – and serves as a good source of humility. Alaska’s excellent salmon fishing, majestic landscape, wildlife, and cleanliness of the environment all were very enticing factors in their decision to relocate. As Lee meets new people here in Alaska he often has an initial feeling of comfort and trust in folks he doesn’t even know. It reminds him of Nebraska – where the overall perception of people is they are solid, believable, hardworking, and have good intentions.

Lee is eagerly getting familiar with the current systems and programs and is working to develop strong relationships with his colleagues throughout the Division. Lee will apply lessons-learned and knowledge gained from his years of fiscal management in the healthcare industry and with the State of Oregon to make necessary adjustments and develop a plan. Lee’s goal is to have a positive and meaningful impact within our Division to benefit our members and stakeholders.

Lee states, “As you may already know, the Division anticipates a major wave of retirees in Alaska and across the nation as the “Baby Boomer” generation continues to retire over the next decade. Furthermore, the unsustainable, ever-increasing costs of healthcare in Alaska are another issue on the horizon. Fortunately, for Alaskans, the State’s retirement and benefit plans are in the hands of very strong leadership.” Lee is committed to doing his best to uphold the values, purpose and vision already established and set in motion by the Division leadership team.

Report from the Field:

Natalia Golovatiuk

Natalia has been with the Division since February of 2011. She spent her first two years working with members in the Member Services Contact Center. She was promoted to Regional Counselor for the Fairbanks area in February of this year. This spring, Natalia traveled to Fairbanks to visit employers and employees of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District and the State of Alaska, Department of Transportation. Her travel season will resume in September, which is the beginning of the travel season for all counselors in the Division.

Natalia grew up in the Odessa region of the Ukraine. Odessa is an international seaport city with a population of 1.3 million. The charming city boasts sophisticated architecture, the Black Sea and plenty of sun. It is famous for the friendly, easy-going nature and sense of humor of its residents. She spent most of her young adult years there and graduated from Odessa Academy of Public Administration with a Master’s degree in Business Administration with a major in Management.

Previously Natalia worked in the hospitality and tourism industry. She spent time as a reservation manager for an international hotel and founded a family-owned travel company. Being a small business owner, she quickly realized how crucial the quality of customer service can be. Customer service impacts not only the company’s financial results but the very existence of a small business depends on satisfaction or dissatisfaction of each and every customer.

Natalia loves to hike, it’s her passion. She feels close to nature, relaxed and inspired when she’s on a hike. Her fiveyear-old daughter also shares this passion and they often enjoy hikes together. In turn, being a mom has introduced Natalia to her newest hobbies including reading to her child and arranging play dates.

Natalia says falling in love led her to leave the Ukraine and accompany her husband to the Republic of Panama, a very beautiful and exotic country in tropical Latin America. This is where her daughter was born. Being immersed in the local culture motivated Natalia to learn Spanish and these language skills helped her land a job as administrator for the high-end resort hotel “Villa Camilla.”

When her husband decided to move on to Juneau, Natalia approached this new adventure with excitement. When she arrived in the rainy capital of Alaska, she discovered the fascinating world of mountains, ocean, hiking, and living in a small but friendly and cozy community.

Natalia has learned a lot from these diverse and often contrasting cultural environments. But what has been the most constant is her willingness to learn new things, whether it is a new language or a section of the PERS statutes, is a skill of vital importance in almost any career. As a retirement counselor, Natalia feels her learning never ends. She says, “this job provides countless opportunities for training, in-depth research and improvement of individual professional qualities.”

She often thinks of the Ukraine, a country with a developing retirement market economy often associated with a sunset of a person’s life. A person who is retired receives a governmentprovided retirement income which is often insufficient to support them financially and limits their after-retirement choices and quality of life. In contrast, retirees in the United States, and in particular Alaska, have an amazing level of freedom to pursue retirement and directions to take after retirement. Natalia knows with wise choices and proper financial planning at a young age, you can live out your retirement dreams.

Natalia sees retirement as the beginning of the new chapter of an individual’s life. Counselors are playing an important role in this process. She notes, “When hiking in an unknown area, it’s best to follow an experienced local guide. I would compare a retirement counselor with that experienced guide. You want to follow your counselor in order not to get lost on your own in the dark forest of the laws, guidelines, rules, Statutes and Regulations.”

The most rewarding part of the job for Natalia is to receive positive feedback from members and to have the opportunity to share her knowledge with others. Natalia has such a variety of tasks each day that no one day is like the last. Counselors make one-on-one counseling appointments, provide telephonic counseling sessions, certify retirement, handle disability and survivor benefits, respond to the member questions, research complex issues, work with employers and give presentations to the members in the retirement systems. The diverse array of duties, performed in a very dynamic environment, make Natalia’s work day fly by with “supersonic speed.”

Post Retirement Pension Adjustment

The 2013 automatic Post Retirement Pension Adjustment (PRPA) will be paid with the July 2013 check.

The automatic PRPA is payable to a Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) retiree under age 60, if retired for five years or more on or before July 1, 2013, and a Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) retiree under age 60, if retired for eight years or more on or before July 1, 2013.

In addition to the above requirements, a retiree must have been receiving a benefit in the prior year (2012) to be eligible for the 2013 PRPA. Eligible recipients, who have not received pension benefits during the entire preceding calendar year, will receive a prorated PRPA.

If you meet these requirements or are age 60 to 64 on July 1, 2013, you will receive 50% (1.008%) of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) change during 2012.

Retirees age 65 or older and all disability benefit recipients receive 75% (1.513%) of the increase in the CPI. The PRPA for survivor benefit recipients is calculated based on the member’s eligibility.

The increase in CPI for the 2013 PRPA is 2.017%. If you do not meet any of the above criteria, you are not eligible.

Due to fund conditions, the Division did not recommend an ad hoc PRPA for 2013. The ad hoc PRPA is defined in statute as, “…based on the financial condition of the retirement funds.”