An STRS flashback - 6 years ago

From John Curry, October 31, 2009

Canton Repository, June 26, 2003

‘Teachers’ on STRS board don’t have classroom duties

By PAUL E. KOSTYU
Copley Columbus Bureau chief

COLUMBUS — Michael N. Billirakis has not stepped foot into a classroom to teach since 1988.

Jack H. Chapman has been employed by the Reynoldsburg City Schools in Central Ohio for at least 30 years, but he doesn’t teach there.

Eugene E. Norris, under contract with the South-Western City Schools in Franklin County, hasn’t taught since January 2000.

Billirakis, Chapman and Norris represent active teachers as board members of the State Teachers Retirement System. All three meet at least one of six definitions of teacher spelled out by state law.

And if there should be any doubt, “the state teachers retirement board shall determine whether any person is a teacher and its decision shall be final,” the law says.

Norris is a “teacher on loan” to the Ohio Department of Education. His $75,000 position ends Monday, at which time he will return to the South-Western district.

Billirakis and Chapman have teacher union leadership jobs that keep them out of the classroom, but on school district payrolls. Both have used a new law pushed by the Ohio Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, to boost their salaries and improve the benefits they receive from STRS, the very organization they are supposed to oversee.

Though he lives in Pickerington, southeast of Columbus, Billirakis is listed on the payroll of Perry Local Schools in Lake County, northeast of Cleveland. He moved his contract there from the Field Local School District in Portage County, where he taught from 1973 to 1988, when he became an OEA officer. The union paid his salary from 1988 to 2001 at the Field Local rate.

In 2001, Billirakis was named to the executive board of the National Education Association, a full-time job that keeps him on the road across the country 20 days a month. Perry Local pays better than Field Local. Billirakis switched districts with the approval of Superintendent Scott Howard and his board. NEA pays Billirakis’ salary, the district’s retirement contributions and other benefits as if he was a full-time teacher. The arrangement doesn’t cost Perry schools a penny, Howard said.

Reynoldsburg employment records for the 2002-03 school year show Chapman missed 75 days for STRS business. Superintendent Richard Ross called that average.

Chapman also took close to 30 days for sick, personal or professional leave, meaning he was gone for 105 days of the 184-day school year.

Ross said he and the school board didn’t think it was fair to students to assign Chapman a class. Instead, Chapman handles in-school suspensions and intervention duties at the district’s junior high school “when he’s there.”

Like any district with an STRS board member on its staff, Reynoldsburg schools are reimbursed the cost of a substitute by STRS, while the employee receives full-time pay.

A couple years ago, Chapman approached the district about serving as a pass through for income he receives as president of the Central Ohio chapter of the OEA. Doing so would allow him to claim a higher salary for retirement purposes even though he wasn’t earning that salary from Reynoldsburg.

Ross and the school board refused to go along.

Chapman took the scheme to the Franklin County Educational Service Center, which agreed. The county board gets a check from the OEA to cover Chapman’s union salary and STRS benefits and even makes 5 percent on the deal, said Superintendent Fred Wolfe.

Both Wolfe and Howard say they like the arrangement.

“Our contract is with OEA,” Wolfe said. “We treat it like any other agency. They assigned Jack to the position. We didn’t want any appearance of impropriety. It’s squeaky clean.

“Jack may not be in a typical classroom, but he takes difficult kids and works with them.”

Howard said he and his district benefit from having access to a teacher with a national reputation. He said Billirakis has met with students and teachers in the district. Howard also said having him connected to the district helps the relationship between the administration and local union.

“He’s a good human being,” Howard said.

Rep. Michelle G. Schneider, R-Cincinnati, a critic of the STRS board and its executive director, said Chapman and Billirakis “are gaming the system.”

But Billirakis said he works “tirelessly” for NEA, OEA and STRS. “I want to make a difference for teachers and schoolchildren,” he said.