Educators working in retirement face benefit loss, suit says
Dispute could leave schools short of special-ed teachers, counselors, speech therapists
An organization that hires education workers and contracts them out to schools is suing the state pension fund for public education employees, saying the fund is threatening to suspend the pension benefits of some retirees who work for the group and seek repayment of past benefits paid.
Cooperative Educational Services of Albuquerque filed the lawsuit recently in state District Court against the Educational Retirement Board and its executive director, Jan Goodwin.
The dispute between Cooperative Educational Services and the Educational Retirement Board could leave public schools short of special-education teachers, counselors, speech therapists and others when classes resume this month.
“Given the school year is about to begin, CES and contracts with school districts may have to be cancelled because of the threat by ERB,” says the lawsuit filed by Cooperative Educational Services.
The lawsuit is seeking a court order barring the Educational Retirement Board from suspending the pension benefits of any retirees working for Cooperative Educational Services or
attempting to claw back benefits previously paid.
An attorney for the pension fund declined to comment on the lawsuit.
State law requires that pension benefits be suspended for any education retiree who returns to work for a public school full time less than a year after retirement. The benefits don’t resume until the retiree stops working for a school.
Cooperative Educational Services has employed education workers who were receiving pension benefits and had been retired less than a year. It argues those workers shouldn’t have their benefits suspended or be forced to pay back benefits because they are employed by Cooperative Educational Services and not a public school.
The Educational Retirement Board counters that the education workers are in effect working for public schools.
According to the lawsuit, representatives of Cooperative Educational Services and the Educational Retirement Board met to discuss the question of whether retirees could return to work through a third party within a year and still receive benefits. The complaint says the retirement board assured the cooperative that teachers who go to work for them would not be penalized.
But in mid-July, Roderick Ventura, an attorney for the Educational Retirement Board, sent Cooperative Education Services a letter saying: “Such a strategy does not comply with ERB statute and rule and can place the retiree in a situation in which their retirement benefits may be terminated and any benefits paid to the employee during such an arrangement be paid back.”
As a result, the lawsuit says, some employees of Cooperative Educational Services are now uncertain about whether they can work for the group without being penalized.
It is unclear how many employees the dispute could impact.
Santa Fe Public Schools uses Cooperative Educational Services to fill vacancies in its special-education department, but not all of those educators are retired, district spokesman Jeff Gephart said Thursday.
Santa Fe Public Schools has six vacancies for special-education teachers, Gephart said, but the district is not relying on Cooperative Educational Services to fill those positions.
Charles Goodmacher, spokesman for the National Education Association of New Mexico, declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying the union was unfamiliar with it.