A bill seeking to protect the monthly benefits of retired public school teachers is set to become law after receiving approval from Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The governor signed Senate Bill 432, proposed by Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, ensuring retired teachers will have legal protection against penalties arising from errors made by the California State Teachers’ Retirement System or CalSTRS.
“Caring for California’s students means taking care of all the people who work at our public schools,” Cortese said in a statement Friday. “Governor Newsom recognizes the importance of ensuring that retired teachers are not penalized through no fault of their own.”
The senator added that the proposed law will bolster the teaching profession “during a time when it’s needed most,” amid rising living costs across much of the state.
According to Cortese’s office, mistakes made by the CalSTRS can put retired teachers’ financial stability at risk. For instance, if CalSTRS identifies an overpayment it is responsible for, a retired teacher might face a penalty, reducing their monthly benefits.
SB 432 ensures that retired teachers will be informed about these errors, and the bill shields their monthly retirement payments from penalties when the mistake is not their fault.
“This important legislation will further California’s goal of protecting our retired teachers from mistakes they did not make,” California Retired Teachers Association President Suzie Dixon said in a statement.
22 comments
As someone who works in finance, this is pretty difficult to decipher, probably intentionally, but it appears to take all responsibility away CALSTRS for any errors it commits while investing and placing it on the taxpayers. Keep in mind, this could be millions of dollars a year in rapidly moving market conditions. Or, they could be sitting on a Silicon Valley Bank type of portfolio, and waiting for this legislation to pass so the state can bail them out.
One reason I no longer vote for school bonds is they don’t seem to be helping the kids learn much, just build or rebuild the schools and support the administration. Why not change the laws so teachers could also have Social Security as well as retirement funds?
Not a reason to vote down a school bond.
Misappropriation of funds and not using them toward their intended purpose? Seems like good reasons. #Downwithteacherunions
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Whoa. This law, on its face, actually makes sense.
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But I’m sure there’s something buried in the language to protect the pwrson who made the initial error. Therefore, no consequence for that person who didnt do their job.
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Exit…you as well of any of us can read the whole bill, no need to assume, yes?
Reading the whole bill is different from actually understanding it. These things are written to be intentionally obscure or vague. But make no mistake, with its passage the bloated bureaucracy has growth another inch.
Watch your Wallet!!!
So my investments should be guaranteed by the state and federal government so I can’t loose money.Totally a joke because we the taxpayers are going to pay I’m sure.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the investments or how the funds are invested, but the calculations made by CalSTRS staff when determining the retiree’s benefits. It’s a staff and/or management failure to to make the correct calculations. The dumbing down of the educational system, especially in California, will lead to more errors by inept employees.
Protect the teachers. Attack the parents
So why wouldn’t Newscum provide protections to other occupations? because he’s got the teachers unions in his back pocket and vice versa…. when will voters wake up and stop this crxx? I’m a native Californiun and I’m ashamed of what’s he’s doing to the state! Grrrrrr!
If the politicians revere teachers so much, give them a raise, make them tax exempt!
Why? They are already way overpaid.
They just got a HUGE raise!
To compare a teacher’s salary to a normal salaried worker in the private sector you need to gross up the teacher’s salary to an equivalent number of working days that the average private sector person works. And before the logic of that teachers work a lot of extra hours is thrown out, there are a lot of salaried private sector workers that are not paid for the extensive overtime they put in as well.
Well…. In MDUSD…..
a Teacher has 185 work days (add 2 for first year at the district)
about a 7 hour shift; cause lunch is undisturbed time
1 week off in the Fall
2 weeks off in the Winter
1 week off in the Spring
9ish weeks off in the Summer
many other holidays
10 days paid time off that subtract from the 185 (sick, personal,) that accrue with no limit; can be put toward retirement
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Private sector has about 260 work days a year and usually not near the above….
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and you’re right Reasonable…. there are those that will naysay what you’ve said…. but…
being the nice people we are….
I am willing to allow them the last word……..
🙂
Old Timer, you misunderstand what happened! After retirement, eachers like me were penalized for incorrect information STRS told school district’s CFOs (Chief Financial Officers). The result was many retired teacher’s had their monthly pensions lowered for life & retroactively took back money. After 40 years of Calif. public school teaching, 31 in Walnut Creek, my monthly retirement was lowered $400 a month AFTER I retired. Just before Thanksgiving AFTER i retired, I received a letter from STRS re an audit of our school district showed an error made over a year before I retired. Our little WCSD school district appealed & lost. Another retiree & I worked alongside our district’s lawyer to attempt to overturn this. Meanwhile STRS took money retroactively according to my retirement date & lowered my monthly pension. While fighting this for over 3 years , I had to substitute teach for $120 a day. IF THE OTHER TEACHER in my district AND I HAD KNOWN THIS WOULD HAPPEN, we would NOT HAVE RETIRED! We finally had a court date & both of testified . Our district’s CFO testified. Then the STRS long tim employee testified. He admitted he gave wromg information to our district’s’ CFO & Contra Costa County’s Office of Education. This happened to many retired teachers across California! The California Administrative law judge ruled against us, even though the STRS employee admitted he’d done told school districts & counties the incorrect information . The judge said we didn’t earn the retirement STRS had promised us. We made an appointment with the STRS Appeals Board. Drove up to Sacramento & spoke to the Appeals Board. The STRS lawyer who spoke after us said STRS staff had more training, so this wouldn’t happen again.. THAT WAS TOO LATE FOR US & many other retired teachers across California. The STRS Appealsboard said they were divided & felt awful about this, but didn’t feel they could go against the judge’s ruling
UNFORTUNATELY FOR US & MANY OTHERS, this new law isn’t retroactive to 2015, when we retired, or for those who retired in 2014.
Thanks for sharing. Its unnerving to trust your retirement to an opague process. But was the judge ultimately correct – you were initially overpayed?
That is EXACTLY right. Now we are on the hook because people were overpaid and don’t like that it goes back to what they should actually be getting.
I paid too much at Safeway or any store. Will this law allow me to retroactively take it back?
This seems like a screwy system where if an opaque system decides that it had paid you too much that they tell you they are taking it back. I have also seen the same thing with the medical system. As a Kaiser member I have no way of discovering how much something will cost ahead of time. I show up for a procedure and they tell me a number. I pay. This is followed by months of mysterious adjustments.
How about telecom employees that were quietly “let go” (like 30 – 40K employees) in the 1990s in Calif with little to show for it that the media ignored? “protections”? reparations? … noooooooooo
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