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After a request from the Lyon County Education Association not to re-enact a suspension of the early retirement incentive policy, in which teachers mainly may have up to three years of retirement credit purchased if they meet certain criteria, the Lyon County School District Board of Trustees delayed any action.

The payments are made to the Public Employees Retirement System and allow staff to retire a little early with full retirement benefits if they qualify, where the district would buy up to three years of retirement credit.

However, in August the district board due to budget concerns voted to suspend the early retirement incentive policy, saying it didn’t have the $800,000 estimated for this year for the program.

Then after an appeal in September from the LCEA, which charged that terms of its collective bargaining agreement hadn’t been met, the school board voted to rescind that suspension pending meetings with the

Steve Fargan, LCEA president, recommended the district should rescind its suspension of the program for this school year.

Barbara Peck said three current instructional coaches in the district who planned to retire this year through this policy, will have their positions eliminated after this school year as the state grant funding will stop. She recommended the district could save money as it would lose the higher salaries of the employees who plan to retire instead of eliminating lower salaries of new employees if budget constraints and dwindling enrollment mean that reducing staffing is needed.

She said she would have retired last year but was in the middle of a two-year grant program and position she’d agreed to take.

Superintendent Caroline McIntosh said currently due to the lower than expected enrollment the district is overstaffed by about 23 teachers.

Trustee Russ Colletta said the board was presented with information from the district comptroller that the early retirement policy does save money over time and thus felt that if this situation went to court the district would lose on the grounds of that fact. “We show the evidence to prove their case.”

He cited the Employee-Management Relations Board (EMRB) had issued a decision in a related case where it ruled the situation was a compensation issue.

Trustee Terry Hall, who for some time had called for a closer look at this policy, questioning whether it saves money, said he wasn’t sure how the district would fund the $800,000 for this program that isn’t now in the budget.

Initially he made a motion to suspend the board policy.

However, Fargan said he “would recommend highly” the board get legal advice before “you make a decision this crucial.”

Later Trustee James Huckaby said there were some questions that needed answering, including by legal counsel, and he suggested instead of taking action that night that the agenda item be continued to the next meeting to allow time for that.

McIntosh said the district is trying to compile information on how many employees would be eligible for this for this school year but still needed information from PERS.

Fargan said the district needed to negotiate the impact of this monetary benefit with the LCEA.

Trustee Jerry Peterson, though, questioned whether the policy was negotiated to start with and if it wasn’t, then it shouldn’t be subject to negotiations now. He said if so then every benefit, such as signing bonuses finding from the state, might be subject to negotiations, which he didn’t want to do.

Huckaby questioned whether if the board passed Hall’s initial motion could take some other action for incentive for employees such as Peck. Later, though, Fargan warned the district against “sidebar” negotiate with individual employees, although Huckaby said he was only speaking for himself as an individual trustee.

Colletta stressed the only reason the policy was instituted was as a cost savings to the district, not a benefit to employees, and thus if it continues to save then it should be continued.

LCSD Human Resources Director Ron Crawford, who had met with the LCEA on the issue as stipulated, said despite the earlier suspension that two had submitted formal early retirement incentive requests and four had contacted him informally.

Source: rgj.com