Dr. Leone re: Retire/Rehire

From John Curry, June 24, 2010

From Dennis Leone, June 24, 2010
Subject: Re: Comments re.................... PD editorial re. Double > Dipping...."just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right!"

.......and, another REAL problem with the retiree/rehire issue is the fact that many supts and principal simply immediately rehire Mrs. Smith to teach 3rd grade because they don't want to be bothered with resume screening, interviews, etc. THIS is destructive to the future of our profession. Many quality new education graduates will give up when one job after another goes to retiree. And with all of the layoffs of teachers early in their career, it makes it even more of a sin to rehire a retiree when these good teachers are available.

Dennis Leone

From ???, June 24, 2010
Subject: Re: PD editorial re. Double Dipping...."just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right!"

Dear John:

Wow, what a strong denunciation! The bad thing about it is that it paints all retirees with a broad brush. The general public will get the very false impression that all retired teachers are getting those huge pensions. It does a disservice to the thousands of retirees living on pensions below $30,000 and those paying huge monthly health care premiums!

Later,
MMMMMMMMM

From John Curry, June 24, 2010

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/06/public_pension_double_dipping.html

Public pension double dipping is an invitation to cronyism: editorial

Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 24, 2010

Ohio's cancerous practice of "double dipping" can best be summed up in the Shaker Heights school board's "retire-rehire" of its six-figure school superintendent, Mark Freeman.

It was a textbook example of cronyism.

Freeman was earning $149,675 when he "retired" from the job 10 years ago. The school board immediately rehired him without publicizing the opening, or interviewing other candidates. His first day back, Freeman got a raise, increasing his salary to $156,546.

He still holds the position today, despite an insider deal so rank it rattled even Ohio's notoriously do-nothing legislators in 2003 to require school districts to perform candidate searches before rehiring the "retired." Other safeguards against blatant favoritism now include job postings, public hearings and a public vote to hold school board members more accountable for their stewardship.

Poorly monitored and cloaked in secrecy, double dipping in Ohio has turned into little more than an enrichment scheme -- and a bait-and-switch in which promising younger public employees who are denied promotions and the taxpayers who subsidize Ohio's public employee pensions are the big losers.

The practice allows highly paid workers to "retire" long enough to claim a pension that would typically be unavailable to a private-sector worker of the same age -- then be re-hired within days, often in the same position, but now earning a pay check and a pension.

Proponents claim the practice saves taxpayers money by securing the best and brightest minds at bargain prices. The numbers suggest otherwise. A joint newspaper analysis of the practice among Ohio school administrators, written principally by Dennis J. Willard of The Akron Beacon Journal and Patrick O'Donnell of The Plain Dealer, found that most double-dipping school superintendents make more money than they did prior to "retiring."

The analysis -- conducted by the state's eight largest newspapers -- noted that one in four superintendents in Ohio's 614 school districts are double dippers.

Their contracts include perks that put them in an elite group of the highest paid public employees in the state. When school districts rehire the retired, they usually pay both the employee and employer contributions to the retirees' annuities in the pension system. That is essentially a 10 percent pay increase, a bonus most taxpayers -- who contribute $4.1 billion a year to subsidize public employee pensions -- do not enjoy.

Worse, all five state pension systems (Public Employees; Teachers; School Employees; Police and Fire; and Highway Patrol) want lawmakers to shake down taxpayers even more to maintain benefits for retirees.

This outrageous gaming of the system must stop. Pension funds must re-examine policies that allow employees to retire at relatively young ages with relatively hefty portions of their pensions intact, just so they can exploit the double-dipper gravy train.

School systems need to adopt a cost-effective strategy that encourages new blood and new ideas. The Ohio Department of Education asserts there are thousands of qualified candidates to run school districts.

Worst of all, Ohioans who help cover the benefits of nearly 400,000 public retirees are kept in the dark about key issues such as how much money a retiree receives and how well the pension systems monitor abuses. That's according to an accompanying story by Rick Armon of The Akron Beacon Journal.

At least 21 states, including New York and Illinois, consider retiree benefits a matter of public record. It's time Ohio legislators demanded that same transparency here.

Double dippers remain defensive, arguing they've broken no law. But, as we learn in school, just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right.