Survival and Emergency Preparedness

I know several of you are former law enforcement, so as a proud uncle, I had to share that my nephew is gradating from PTI today and will be starting his career in law enforcement. My wife is attending the ceremony today and just sent me a picture of him in his uniform.

He served as a Marine and once he came out wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He ended up deciding to go into law enforcement. He will be working in a community about 25 minutes from us.

We are extremely proud of him.

Tell him best of luck.... stay safe !

Also tell him to max out his deferred 457 plan while young and can afford it...

I asked him when he could go out and to his understanding at age 58 he will have reached max pension.

We are a little nervous for him, but excited also. He is working one town over from East St. Louis. Yet one of the couples we runaround with, he is a retired LT. Detective from that department. The police department currently has 72 officers and working on hiring 8 more officers.

In NY, the tiers have been changing over the years...
When I left, ( tier two ) I think they were at tier 4 now at 6.

Was;
20 yr at 50% and 66% at 32yrs ( no age required )... but also the FAS was calc'ed differently back then...much better for worker , I stayed for 32.
but also the pay out was good as work payed for unused sick time at 50% current salary.

current;
Upon completion of 25 years of creditable service, you are entitled to 50 percent of your final average salary (FAS), regardless of age. Each year of service beyond 25 years adds 1/60th (1.66 percent) of your FAS, up to a maximum of 75 percent of your FAS.

The good thing is they keep sending me the check and I'm in fairly good shape.

Once again tell him best wishes and be safe.

We are excited for him and very proud.

Congrats to your nephew. Not sure I would want to go into LE these days.

I worked 36 years in law enforcement in 6 different departments (it's a long story ) 26 years at my final one and I bought 4 years to get my 30 year pension. All had different pension programs.

First was campus police, then park police, then township police, then sergeant on a different campus police, then railroad police then finally 26 years as director of a campus public safety/police. As you can tell I kind of liked campus policing.

The pension I ended up with was the same as the public school system which the community college I worked for was part of. It was in the process of changing (for the worse) which was what prompted me to retire earlier than 30 years. I was able to role over some of my 403b (tax sheltered annuities) without tax penalty to buy the last 4 years. The increase in pension recovered the difference in 2 years.

Nephew made the paper already. (Yes I know the other officers may of played a role to, but being a proud uncle..........)
Jonathon's bike was stolen earlier this month. After learning about the incident, members of the Belleville Police Department arranged to donate a new bike to Jonathon. Jonathon rides his bike to work daily. Belleville PD commends Jonathon on his work ethic and hopes he enjoys his new ride!