Part Time Retirement Issues

By Martin M. Goldstein

    Most of us part timers spend most of our “careers” trying to eliminate those quotation marks, and not succeeding. A “career” would imply some sensible pattern of employment,  including job security and retirement plans, along with a continuity of professional work in one field if not one institution. Such, almost certainly, is not our fate.

    So, that said, we will still get old, or older, hopefully, and will want to, or have to, stop working someday. That’s called retirement, for those of us who have seldom contemplated secure employment, much less the option of ceasing it willingly. Normal people used to plan for it and get it, back in the day, but not no more.

    Today it’s different, and we have to deal with the options available to us generally, and specifically here at SMC. Let’s start with Social Security, much in the news today. It’s not an option at SMC, but some of us have worked, or still work elsewhere, and have paid or are paying into it. If you have it, you have it, and they will tell you what you have in yearly statements, and it’s all a good thing, though it does impact strangely and negatively with STRS, so do take note if you are already invested in it.

    STRS, the State Teachers' Retirement System, is also much in the news these days, with Arnold’s attempts to sandbag it. Thankfully this is helping to sink his popularity and shrinking his good guy image. There is a pattern here, and it all ends up with Wall Street getting to play with our money rather than our government guarding it for us, but don’t get me started.

    The STRS Defined Benefit (DB) Program is available to PTers as well as FTers in the CC’s and the K-12 system, thus it’s size and strength. Many of us refused the option of joining STRS DB when we first started teaching PT at SMC because we felt we wouldn’t be working PT long enough to vest  in  it,  five full-time  equivalent  (FTE) years.

 

That said, some of us have been working long enough by now to at least want to consider switching over to STRS.

    Note that SMC doesn’t offer the STRS Cash Balance (CB) plan, but does offer a similar defined contribution (as opposed to defined benefit) plan from LARISA, the Los Angeles Regionalized Insurance Services Authority. Both are matched savings plans with a cash payout on retirement, and thus really glorified savings accounts rather than a true pension like STRS DB.

    The STRS DB plan is an excellent one, and has been modified recently to benefit PTers in significant ways. Generally under the DB plan we contribute about 8% of our salary, the District contributes 8.25%, and the State kicks in about 2%. But since 2001 and until 2010 while the district is still contributing their 8.25%, faculty only have to contribute 6% to their actual pension obligation while the extra 2% goes into a Supplemental fund that pays out in cash like a CB fund upon retirement. All teachers who work in excess of a year of service credit also pay into this STRS DB Supplemental cash fund that the teacher receives upon retirement, along with the DB pension.

    But most significantly, and many thanks to Phyllis Eckler of Glendale and LACCD for bringing this to my attention, PTers can earn service credit not just for fall and spring teaching assignments, but also for winter and summer intersessions (!), extra assignments such as substitute teaching or non-instructional work such as writing curriculum, office hours (if paid for) and paid ancillary activities, i.e. reassigned time. This means that a 60% law maximum load PTer can still earn a full year of service credit in one district, as well as through multiple district employment (i.e. freeway flying).

    Which only counts, of course, if they (the district) counts it, and counts it correctly. At SMC it has  been  traditional  to count  PT service  credit incorrectly, reducing it by approximately 1/3, for reasons even Yoda would have trouble comprehending. The correct computation involves the ratio of what you do earn to what you "could" earn if you worked a "full yearly load" -- defined as 15 hours a week times 18 weeks a semester, times two semesters a year, at whatever your hourly rate is.  Not rocket science, but, again, don't get me started.

    They say they are now doing it properly, and if they are it is only due to the efforts of our tireless advocate Mitra Moassessi, but they are unable, they say, to retroactively make the corrections, which leaves some, like Ben Martin, rightfully livid. It may take a lawsuit to correct this, yet another waste of time and money when simply doing the right thing would be the only smart thing to do.

    The importance of obtaining service credit is, of course, that you have to have five years of it to vest, and if you don't, you don't get most of the benefits, though you do get your own contributions, plus interest. Note that in a CB or LARISA plan, you also get the districts contributions, plus interest, but in STRS DB, if you don't vest, you only get your own contributions. In sum, don't go near STRS DB unless you are sure of vesting, but if you can vest, it's the best -- so long as you don't have Social Security.

    In California, where we live and work, any payments you get from STRS decrease your payments from Social Security. Why? you ask. Because, I answer. It was an old concept about not having public employees double-dipping, but irrelevant and punitive in today's PT world. Some states where the unions have cared about it enough have eliminated this inequity, but California is not yet one of them. So if you already have Social Security, you need to carefully run the numbers to see if STRS DB is worth it for you. If you don't have Social Security, however, and you can vest in the DB program, it's most certainly worth considering.

    I'd like to acknowledge the assistance of Ben Martin, Phyllis Eckler, Mitra Moassessi, and Becky Curtis in the preparation of this article.

    If you would be interested in participating in a FACCC retirement workshop to discuss any of these issues, email Becky Curtis at “curtis_rebecca@smc.edu”.  We could do it on a weekend so everyone can attend.