Dear Campus Personnel Officers and Staff:
Thank you for attending the Postdoc Benefits Training held during the week of the 20th of September. As mentioned in the sessions, a separate meeting will be held towards the end of October to discuss transition issues tied to the new title code (3252), billing and accounting processes in relation to premium payments of Fellows (3253) and Paid Directs (3254) and the implementation of the sick leave and time off provisions. An announcement from Academic Personnel on the location and dates of these meetings should be forthcoming.
Between now and the meeting in October, we acknowledge that you may encounter circumstances that you are not prepared to handle as of yet so we would like to provide you some guidance:
1. Please do not hesitate to direct Postdocs to the Garnett-Powers and Associates (GPA) Postdoc Scholar Customer Service line or call the Administration line yourself if you have questions about the Plan.
| Postdoctoral Scholars Customer Service |
800-254-1758 |
| Administration Customer Service |
800-254-9210 |
2. If Fellows (3253) or Paid Directs (3254) submit their "Enrollment/Change" form and "Beneficiary Designation" form to your department at this time, PLEASE HOLD ON TO THESE FOR NOW. We will provide you instructions when we meet in October.
3. If Visiting Postdocs (3370) submit to you their "Election and Acknowledgement" form and/or their "UPAY 850" form to cancel their current plan and switch to the new Plan/titlecode by January, please provide a list of those who have responded to the Office of Graduate Studies (OGS) if you wish for us to track responses for you. In the mailings to the 3370s sent by GPA in September, we asked Postdocs to send these forms via the addressed envelope which should be directed to OGS. We have not received any at this time. If they elect for the new Plan, please hold on to the "Enrollment/Change" form and "Beneficiary Designation" form as well.
Please be aware of the following:
1. Since GPA is providing extensive services to assist UC Postdocs and Administrators, apart from the Costs discussed in the September meeting, GPA is charging a Broker fee of $11.10 per postdoc per month. It was an oversight on Graduate Studies’ part that this was not discussed during the previous meeting.
2. Open Enrollment is coming up on the 11th and 18th. OGS will be sending an email reminder to the Postdocs this week.
3. OGS provided GPA a listing of Postdocs who were eligible for the Plan as of 8/31/04 which was the basis of the GPA mailings. As discussed, on a monthly basis after the 8/31 report, OGS is going to provide you with a listing of new Postdocs eligible for the Plan as well as those who have dropped off from the list. We have the 9/30/04 report ready and we will be sending this to the CPO of each School or Unit shortly.
Please do not hesitate to give us a call if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Franchesca del Mundo
Office of Graduate Studies
(949) 824-8120
