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Public Employee: Retire at 57, get $94,000 a year
Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 11/24/2012 | Tom Gantert

Posted on 11/27/2012 6:07:41 AM PST by MichCapCon

When Flint Community Schools Superintendent Linda Thompson made news that she was going to retire, what was missed was the fiscal impact of her leaving the school system.

Thompson worked 36 years for the Flint school district and will be 57 when she retires. A public school employee who worked 36 years for Flint schools and made Thompson's average salary of $175,649 the past three years would earn a pension of $94,850 a year.

If that 57-year-old retiree received a pension for the 26 years of his or her life expectancy with a 3 percent cost of living annual increase, it would grow to $204,552 a year.

"They are getting lavish benefits from an underfunded pension system,” said James Hohman, a fiscal policy analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. "But the terms are the terms. The problem with the pension system is the politicians don’t put enough money aside for it. It's not her fault that politicians can't be trusted to manage a pension."

Thompson's benefits are part of the guarantees written into the contracts she worked under in her time in the district. The generous terms highlight the need for serious reform of the taxpayer-funded teacher pensions systems.

The Michigan Public School Employees' Retirement System’s unfunded liability has reached $22.4 billion. One reason is the state tacks on a 3-percent annual cost of living adjustment to many of the pensions of public school retirees.

The state law was changed in 2010 so that public school employees hired from July 1, 2010 and after do not get the 3 percent cost of living adjustment.

A 2010 study done by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy found that only 6 of 24 major private companies in Michigan had a defined benefit pension plan similar to what teachers are offered. And none of the 24 private companies offered cost-of-living increases.


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: pension; schools
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To: trebb; skeeter
If you want to talk about union plans, this isn't the thread to do it ~ this is about a MANAGEMENT RETIREMENT PLAN.

Unions don't do that!

Which raises a good question ~ how many folks on this thread have the slightest understanding of how management deferred payment plans and retirements work and why?

41 posted on 11/27/2012 12:06:33 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Joshua

I’ve long argued that many of our problems lie at the most local level, with school boards, citizens associations, etc.

I had served on several boards in our county and noticed I was heavily outnumbered by liberal Dems. One thing I’ll give them credit for is putting in their time to go to those board meetings and become involved in the decision-making process.

In the meanwhile, Republicans are at home, working with their own kids and doing their own jobs, running their own businesses. But they are not out in the community, taking part in how their assets are being spent.


42 posted on 11/27/2012 12:09:08 PM PST by EDINVA
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To: driftdiver
There are a good 7 million CEOs in this country. Most of them lose money had over fist. Some manage firms more successfully.

I doubt there are more than about 5,000 school superintendents.

43 posted on 11/27/2012 12:09:41 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

“Most of them lose money had over fist. “

Most companies make money or they cease to exist, unless you are talking about the Post Office of course. Now they take losing money to a whole new level.

So the fewer number of school supers makes them rare and apparently worth more because they can’t get anyone else to take a gravy govt job for less than $175k/yr with a $100k retirement plan.

yeah boyyy!


44 posted on 11/27/2012 12:15:22 PM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: muawiyah
If you want to talk about union plans, this isn't the thread to do it ~ this is about a MANAGEMENT RETIREMENT PLAN. Unions don't do that! Which raises a good question ~ how many folks on this thread have the slightest understanding of how management deferred payment plans and retirements work and why?

Point taken - the story didn't make it clear (at least to me), but the salary itself should have raised a flag. Are you saying that this employee wasn't union-related or that it didn't really matter due to the difference in how the different retirement plans are negotiated/handled? This curious mind really wants to know and the Enquirer is fresh out of stories about the topic.

45 posted on 11/27/2012 12:29:01 PM PST by trebb (Allies no longer trust us. Enemies no longer fear us.)
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To: muawiyah
this is about a MANAGEMENT RETIREMENT PLAN.

This is about union retirees getting lavish benefits from an underfunded pension system.

Personally, I think the question of management/mismanagement of the plans is a union red herring.

46 posted on 11/27/2012 12:31:09 PM PST by skeeter
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To: PrairieLady2

Did someone put a gun to her head...and force her to become a “teacher”?


47 posted on 11/27/2012 12:38:12 PM PST by Osage Orange ( Liberalism, ideas so good they have to be mandatory.)
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To: driftdiver

ROFLOL!!!!


48 posted on 11/27/2012 12:40:25 PM PST by Osage Orange ( Liberalism, ideas so good they have to be mandatory.)
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To: MichCapCon
57 when she retires. A government school employee, Thompson's average salary of $175,649 the past three years would earn a pension of $94,850 a year.

Bewahahaha....The joke is on the private sector...They're 100 percent screwed by government at all levels.

49 posted on 11/27/2012 12:42:41 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: napscoordinator; driftdiver
She is equvalent to a CEO of a company.

Bewaahahahaha...She nothing but a tax paid school administrator...lol

This site is teaming with big gov hacks who try to rationalize this out of control corrupt government insanity.

50 posted on 11/27/2012 12:47:32 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: MichCapCon

Just don’t pay her. Let her sue. To hell with the “contract”...libs don’t believe in laws anyway.


51 posted on 11/27/2012 12:51:36 PM PST by Fledermaus (The Republic is Dead: Collapse the system. Let the Dems destroy the economy!)
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To: driftdiver
Trick with USPS is it has exactly one CEO ~ and Department of Defense loses several times as much money as the USPS even spends.

You realize that USPS has a financing mechanism, and a special law, that if followed as designed would result in them not losing any money at all.

Olympia Snowe came up with the current modification to that process and it will bankrupt USPS ~ and she's gone now. Time to give all her cr*p up and get back to the basics and follow the law.

Now, what are you going to do about turning Department of Defense into a profit center?

About the 7 million CEOs, most of them have not been making profits the last few years and it's actually getting worse. That's one of the big reasons they aren't hiring people. In theory they should go out of business, but that usually doesn't happen instantly ~ I'd imagine that as Obamugabe raises taxes on them they will, in fact, go out of business, go on food stamps, and get in touch with their inner winos and street bums eh.

52 posted on 11/27/2012 12:56:11 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: skeeter
It's about a top end manager raiding a retirement system simply not designed for her.

If they'd hired her properly, and signed onto the right competitive contract, she'd make several times that ~

53 posted on 11/27/2012 12:58:52 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: dragnet2

“This site is teaming with big gov hacks who try to rationalize this out of control corrupt government insanity. “

This crossed my mind as well.

They are for small govt as long as its not their cush job.


54 posted on 11/27/2012 1:18:06 PM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: driftdiver
DD, sorry to upset your day but anybody who wants to argue that contracts are not sacred in America is on the wrong board.

Take your marxist nonsense somewhere else!

55 posted on 11/27/2012 2:31:52 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

lol you are funny mail man

Do you even know what Marxism is? Your blind support of bigger govt is far closer to it than anything I’ve ever supported.

Your use of the big Lie technique is also similiar to their tactics.


56 posted on 11/27/2012 3:18:54 PM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: driftdiver
Marx was one of the guys who proposed the way to destroy the bourgeoise was to simply ignore contracts.

Your typical communist government in the period where there were such critters simply didn't allow private contracts at all ~

So, yeah, you suggest ignoring contracts you're a commie ~ a marxist ~

57 posted on 11/27/2012 4:06:40 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: driftdiver
BTW, the ordinary individuals best protection against the abuses of government, big or small, is a widespread belief throughout society in the RULE OF LAW.

Big government doesn't want you to respect private contracts between individuals, nor between you and anyone else.

BIg government thinks it can just issue an edict to hand over your stuff and you hand it over.

Sorry, I do not support big government ~ but the people who think the right to contract can be abrogated at will do believe in big government.

Thank God for Smith, and for Wesson ~ they come into play when some goober, in or out of government, thinks he can just break a contract.

58 posted on 11/27/2012 4:10:30 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

Marxists use unions to gain contracts which take control over businesses. It is the contracts which are putting the education system and the post office out of business financially.

Only the govt could take an organization which has a virtual monopoly (100% market share) and bankrupt it.

Face it, you are a mailman and are counting on those cushy retirement plans that the rest of the company pays for.


59 posted on 11/27/2012 4:44:15 PM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: muawiyah

You sure do protest a lot for a union hack, you must have a cush job pushing junk mail around.


60 posted on 11/27/2012 4:45:24 PM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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