Maybe why college costs so much

emeraldkity4
Sun, 27 Jun 2010 17:02:46 +0000

Those rules were temporarily lifted in 2001 to encourage more teachers to return to work to relieve a shortage. That led to a flood of state employees retiring and getting rehired, prompting lawmakers to again clamp down on the practice in 2003. Olympia has been trying to plug loopholes since.

As a result, most state employees can return to work for only up to 40 percent of the hours they worked as full-timers — or lose some of their pension benefits. But thanks to a glaring loophole, many higher-education employees have been able to skirt the rules.

It’s because colleges and universities typically have two parallel retirement systems — the state system and a separate system administered by the institution. Administrative employees can often retire under the state system and return to work under the university plan.

By switching plans, the workers put themselves beyond the reach of state limitations on double dipping. In the eyes of the state, it’s as if the workers returned to a job in the private sector. In reality, the only thing that has changed is some paperwork.

The returning workers are also able to benefit from a second retirement plan, typically receiving a generous state match of up to 10 percent of their wages.

“Under current law, an individual who opts into one of the higher-education retirement plans has no restriction on the hours they can work,” said Dave Nelsen, the legal-services manager for the state Department of Retirement Systems.

Nelsen said it may be hard to find a legislative fix that would withstand a court challenge.



sounds like they have been trying.