Legislators Need to Get Pensions Right

GOV. Manchin’s proposal for the merger of the teacher’s defined- contribution retirement plan with the traditional Teachers Retirement System defined-benefit plan is a shameful affront to the teaching community.

The design discourages teachers in the defined contribution plan from voting for the merger. The stringent requirements involve another election and an expensive buy-your-way-back-in scheme.

The proposed buyback would put many teachers in the dire position of taking second mortgages on their homes to get back into the TRS.

Lawmakers are bemoaning the costly expenditure of the merger. They disregard the thousands of poorly paid professionals who have labored for years only to find that they will retire with little more than enough money to pay for health insurance.

Our representatives neglect to assume responsibility for the ineffective retirement program legislated almost two decades ago. With a thoughtless vote and the stroke of a pen, the Legislature hurled thousands of educators into a financial quagmire that will prove to tarnish their golden years.

Now, almost 20 years later, legislators recognize the egregious inferiority of the TDC – the defined-contribution plan. Reversing their earlier decision to hire new teachers into the TDC retirement program, they hire new employees into the TRS, the old defined- benefit plan.

The thousands of school employees entangled in the grossly inadequate TDC have been scorned as burdens to the state. Many lawmakers appear offended that these forgotten teachers expect retirement compensation equal to that of their colleagues.

Teacher participation in the TDC consists of those who hired into the system when it was the mandated retirement policy and those who were seduced into voluntarily switching from the defined-benefit plan into the new defined-contribution plan.

I am one of the teachers who unwittingly became a participant of what I believe to be a fraudulent marketing endeavor to lure unsuspecting teachers from the old teachers retirement plan into the new teachers defined-contribution plan.

When I was a young teacher in the early 1990s, a personable gentleman set up shop in the faculty lounge at my school. This friendly man had acquired a printout of my personal retirement plan with the state.

He proceeded to explain to me that the Teacher’s Retirement System was going broke and would be bankrupt before I could retire. He met my shock with a smile and assured me that all would be well if I signed onto the new TDC plan that day.

It was my understanding that Kanawha County schools had sent this man with my personal account information so that he could provide a safety net for my retirement.

He presented me with two options. I could remain in the impoverished TRS and probably – or lose my retirement or switch into the TDC and maintain a secure retirement.

Several years earlier, this kind, helpful man had hired me into the Kanawha County school system. Not only had he granted me a much- needed job then, but he was now going to secure my retirement funds.

Considering his accounting of the failing TRS and his endorsement of the TDC, I followed the advice of this representative of Kanawha County schools.

It was not until later that I learned that this amicable work associate was retired from the school system, and at the time he persuaded me to convert my retirement plan, he was a sales representative soliciting investment products.

I have since spoken with many teachers in the TDC from various counties throughout the state. They have validated my experience with similar if not identical narratives of their personal retirement conversions.

They have recounted stories of retired personnel from their county school offices visiting their schools and warning of the eventual TRS collapse. These familiar faces then misled those teachers into a financial venture that would eradicate their possibilities for a full retirement.

The state apparently approved of the solicitation of retirement investments in school buildings on school time. They provided salespersons with the private financial information they needed to massively manipulate school employees in the workplace.

A wise man would assume that the coalition of retired school officials and financial investment companies was one component of a well-planned strategy to coerce teachers out of the TRS pension plan and into the new TDC.

The governor’s proposal for the retirement merger absolves our state government leaders of the responsibility they must shoulder to guarantee equity and fairness to a large group of exploited state employees.

West Virginia lawmakers now have the power to right the injustice they legitimized almost 20 years ago.

Continuing to roadblock a reasonable pathway for a retirement merger is dishonorable and a callous disregard for the welfare of many hard-working West Virginians.

Wagoner teaches at Hayes Middle School and is a freelance writer.

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