Teacher Pension Change to get Legal Challenge
Charleston Daily Mail: "Charleston lawyer Jim Lees is planning to challenge the pending merger of two state teacher retirement plans, even though the merger was approved in a vote by participants in the plan proposed for phaseout.
The results of voting that has taken place by mail over the past several weeks were announced Monday.
'The court needs to look at this,' Lees said today. 'If the state doesn't want to operate a defined contribution plan, that's fine. But why are they seeking to take money from people who have played by the rules, people who didn't have a choice 10 or 15 years ago? That's what puzzles me.
'In my opinion, it doesn't pass the constitutional muster.'
The vote indicates most teachers and service personnel workers across the state agreed with the proposal to switch their retirement funds from a relatively new defined contribution plan to the state's old defined benefit plan.
The state's Consolidated Public Retirement Board said about 12,700 of nearly 23,000 eligible voters cast ballots. Nearly 7,900, or 62 percent, voted to return to the old Teachers Retirement System. About 4,900 voted to remain in the newer Teachers Defined Contribution Plan.
'With the older system, you have a guaranteed benefit for life. That was the key, I think, as"
posted by Gundovald at 4/05/2006 01:53:00 AM
1 Comments:
The Teachers Defined Contibution Plan (TDC) allows teachers the flexability to be aggressive or conservitive with the growth of their retirment $$'s. The TRS (old system) is a fixed guarenteed payment when you retire(that is as long as our legislature funds it).The "key" to this vote was how the state sold the idea to the teachers that the TDC is inferior and not as lucrative as the TRS. First things first, when ever the state wants to here from teachers they send information to the schools to be distributed by the principals to the faculty. Then they give back the information to the administrators who inturn, send the information back to the state. This is not what the state did this time. Ballots were sent certified mail. This means that teachers who were elegible to vote had to go to the post office to pick up their ballots. Most people who have received certified mail think it is something bad, like a court order and sometimes refuse to pick it up. I'll get back to this point in a moment. Secondly, when the state school board held county meetings about the subject, they purposfully sold teachers on the idea that a guarnteed benefit out weighed the risk/reward aspect of the defined contribution plan (TDC). That this is their opportunity to get back into the "better plan" (TRS). If I may paint the picture...... the state legislature decided that instead of funding the old teachers retirement TRS, they would entice the teachers in the TDC plan to bring their $$ back into the old plan (TRS). While many of the teachers retirement $$'s in the TDC are out pacing the old plan (TRS), this would be a windfall and help fund the TRS (old plan).Not to mention the state wants these teachers to pay extra $$ to "get caught up" with the TRS.
The state said only %50 had to vote to make it legal, and by mailing ballots by certified mail they accomplished a %56.1 turn out.
So by a simple majority and an actual %34 of the total TDC group in favor of the merger with the TRS the state has found a way to fund the old system.
The question now is about property rights, these individual accounts that these teachers own, are they bound by a class vote?
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