Nanuet School Board Addresses Retirement, Health Benefits

At a previous school board meeting, Nanuet resident and father Jim Flynn asked the board a question on the GASB 45 report specifically on staff retirement and health benefits.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) is an independent organization that establishes and improves standards of accounting and financial reporting, according to its website.

“The issue was … how many people come into the district, put in 10, 12 years and walk away with retirement benefits for life,” said Phil Sions, assistant superintendent for business. “It’s a really good issue because if you see that happening, there’s something’s wrong. We have to make sure that that isn’t occurring. If you look (at the charts), you’ll see that that isn’t the case here.”

To answer Flynn’s question, Sions provided a handout, which is attached to this article. There was an excerpt from a Board of Education meeting on July 7, 1987 that stated that the following resolution was unanimously approved:

Any member of the Teaching Staff, employed effective September 1, 1987, will, upon retirement, pay the State mandated contribution* towards their health benefit plan.

*This amount is 50 percent of the cost for Individual Coverage; Family Coverage cost is 50 percent of the individual cost + 65 percent of the difference between individual and family.

“(The percentages) happen to be the maximum the state of NY will allow you to acquire in terms of contributions so the Board, very wisely at that time, could see what was coming,” said Sions. “We cannot ask for any more contributions. We are at the max and that is very important as we go forward and as health costs continue to escalate.”

The handout also included a chart listing the number of active employees by age and service as of July 1, 2011 using the census collected on July 1, 2010.

There was a second chart showing how many years of service a school district employee has put in at the time of retirement.

“This is what Mr. Flynn was asking about,” said Sions, referring to the two charts. “If you look in the first column, there were actually three people that put in less than ten years. Now those people would not be eligible to receive medical benefits in retirement for whatever reason that they left. That would be 2 percent of the total.”

In order to be eligible for benefits, a person would need to be employed by the district for at least 10 years and at least 55 years old when they retire.

Sions added that employment with other districts do not count.

“32 percent of our retirees have put in 10-20 years,” said Sions. “We actually have 10 people that put in more than 35 years. At the end of the day, two-thirds of the retirees put in more than 20 years. I think that’s a pretty good statistic. I imagine it will continue that way and maybe will improve.”