Employee Recognition 2011
1st Quarter Employee Parking Space

Shirley Baker     Betty Fails

•AWARD DETAILS:
Shirley Baker and Betty Fails

Shirley Baker and Betty Fails received the 1st Quarter 2011 Employee Recognition Award for their work in the Office's file room where thousands of pieces of mail and work documents are reviewed, imaged, or distributed to staff. In the past year, more than 68,000 documents have been imaged and 23,000 pieces of mail have been opened and reviewed. Since the inception of our imaging system, more than 1 million documents (documents usally contain more than one page) have been reviewed and imaged or distributed. The Office of Pensions could not work as efficiently as it does without the work of these ladies. They are definitely the supporting foundation of our mission. Thank you Shirley & Betty for all of your hard work!

Employee Recognition 2011
2nd Quarter Employee Parking Space

Tammy Donovan

•AWARD DETAILS:
Tammy Donovan

Tammy was selected the 2nd Quarter 2011 Pension Office Employee Recognition Award for her willingness to help her co-workers whenever needed. She is a Human Resources Specialist II lead working in the Payroll Module of the Pension Office processing various pension benefit reconciliations, tax documentation, adjustments, direct deposits, electronic fund transfers and disability reported earnings. However, Tammy was a major player in supporting health care Open Enrollment this year by taking phone calls through the Automated Call Distribution system and assisting pensioner who walked into the office unannounced while continuing to keep up with her own work load.

Further, Tammy assists in answering calls at the reception desk if she is faxing a document at a nearby station and hears more incoming phone calls than the two assigned receptionists can answer promptly.

Tammy was also helpful to the police in determining the nearest relative for a pensioner with dementia who was found roaming the streets of the City of New Castle.

Tammy routinely thinks outside the box and suggests innovative ideas for correcting problematic areas of our business processes.

Tammy is an asset to our office and we are fortunate to have her on our team!

Employee Recognition 2010
3rd Quarter Employee Parking Space

Bernice Murray

•AWARD DETAILS:
Bernice Murray

Bernice Murray worked with our consulting programmers to implement Senate Bill 140 (Burial Benefit Assignment) into our PeopleSoft Comprehensive Retirement Information System (CRIS) under intense pressure from administration to meet a tight deadline and frequent calls from funeral directors as well as other interested parties. This legislative bill allowed beneficiaries of a deceased pensioner's burial benefit to assign the burial benefit payment directly to a funeral home. The beneficiary remains responsible for the federal and state taxes and the Pension Office is mandated by the IRS to offer options to the beneficiaries to avoid that taxation. Once this bill passed the General Assembly, the funeral directors and sponsoring legislators wanted immediate payment to the funeral homes. Bernice was tasked with understanding the taxation issues, understanding the PeopleSoft processes, fields, and pages, and to use communication skills to explain those details to non-Pension Office computer programmers. Further, she tested the outcome of the programming changes for accuracies and developed letters, forms, and packages to be sent to the beneficiaries. Lastly, she trained Pension Office staff to understand the process so that payments could begin. She accomplished all of this by the deadline given to her. She spent many hours outside of her normal workday achieving this goal.

We commend Bernice for her dedication and are extremely grateful for her commitment. She is a true asset to our office.

Employee Recognition 2011
4th Quarter Employee Parking Space

Amy Cole,  Kristen Boehmer, Samantha Mountz,  Ronica Ridley-Martin

•AWARD DETAILS:
Amy Cole, Kristen Boehmer,
Samantha Mountz,
Ronica Ridley-Martin

Ronica Ridley-Martin, Kristen Boehmer, Amy Cole and Samantha Mountz were instrumental in training employers participating in Delaware Public Employees Retirement System pension plans as well as training the Pension Office staff in using the new electronic pension application process. The training entailed creating training material, contacting employers, creating a database of training registration, and then conducting training classes for over 325 key end users. These ladies did a tremendous job and we are appreciative of their efforts and dedication to the Office of Pensions!