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Santa Monica College Faculty Association
1900 Pico Blvd.
Liberal Arts, Room 140
Santa Monica, CA  90405
Phone 310-434-4394
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President: Mitra Moassessi

Executive Secretary: Janet Watts

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September, 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1 - Are you Working Full Time for only $12,423 a Year? PDF Print E-mail
By Lantz Simpson   

      Last year the FAB asked the question: should you retire and make more money?  The answer in many cases was “yes.”  This year the FAB looks at salaries versus STRS retirement benefits from another angle, and has come up with another question: are you working full time for only $12,423 a year?  On the surface you may think this is an absurd question, but upon further reflection, you may realize that the answer in your case is also “yes.”

      How can this be?  Let’s use the following logic.  Let’s assume that you are at Group VI, step 23 on the salary schedule, that you are age 63 or older, and that you have 30 years of service credit in the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS).  Your gross salary for 2001-02 was $86,114.  However, you are paying 8% of that automatically into STRS, so you are really making $79,225 for tax and spend able income purposes.  Under current STRS rules, if you were retired, your yearly defined benefit income from STRS would be $66,802 [calculated below]—only $12,423 less than you are making now by working full time!  That means you are REALLY only working for the additional $12,423 a year— which means that your teaching pay is only $1242 per class, which is far less than even a beginning part-time faculty person makes for teaching the same class.  In the meantime, you are continuing to make STRS contributions of $6,889 per year, instead of receiving nearly ten times that much back from STRS as your defined retirement benefit.

      The above case is only a theoretical example.  Everyone’s individual case will be different.  Please consult your STRS members handbook and call your local STRS office for an appointment with a STRS counselor to find out how much money YOU are really working for.

      STRS calculation:  30 years service credit times 2.4 age differential equals 72% of highest gross salary ($86,114) equals $62,002, plus $400 per month ($4,800 per year) longevity bonus equals $66,802 per year.
  		 

 

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