Saturday, March 19, 2016

Complaint letter- Joplin R-8 bus drivers denied pension benefts

Joplin Education Support Professionals (JESP) have filed a complaint letter with the Joplin R-8 School District, claiming that bus drivers have been denied pension benefits. The JESP will likely file a grievance in the near future.

The text of the complaint letter is printed below:

Over the last six months, it has come to the attention of our JESP leaders that many, if not all, of our members in the Bus Barn have been denied a pension benefit that is their right by law. At this point, JESP has submitted a written letter to the district calling immediate attention to this situation. According to Missouri Revised Statutes, the Public Education Employee Retirement System (PEERS) applies to all regularly employed public school employees who devote at least 20 hours per week and 600 hours per year to such employment. If an employee meets the eligibility requirements they must be included in the system and all relevant contributions must be made. In investigating this situation within on our membership, we have discovered drivers who have served the district for 20 years or more, each one having been regularly employed and working over 20 hours a week and 600 hours a year. Each of these drivers have been denied their pension benefit under law, a retirement that for each individual would now exist in the tens of thousands of dollars - if it existed. In other scenarios, drivers and aids have been granted and then denied their rightful benefit over the course of more recent years for seemingly nonsensical reasons. One thing is clear: there is a problem with the pension benefit distribution within the bus barn community and while the district has taken steps to remedy this problem going forward (contributions for employees working over 20 hours a week did resume in January), the problem of lost retirement to dozens of hardworking employees remains. We look forward to hearing back from Joplin Public Schools and reaching resolution on this matter on behalf of our members.

JESP is the arm of the Joplin National Education Association (JNEA) that works with support personnel.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the law is followed, that is a substantial amount of money to be factored into the school budget. And how far back is the district responsible for? If it is the law, it is standard operating procedure for all districts--so how is it possible that it had been overlooked?

Anonymous said...

Rut Roh.

>>>In other scenarios, drivers and aids have been granted and then denied their rightful benefit over the course of more recent years for seemingly nonsensical reasons.<<<

If true, this detail is potentially consequential and incriminating.

Anonymous said...

If it is true, then it is a career killer for several folks in the School District. Pension reserves is not something that the State will allow messing with.

I am a robot. said...

Another one of Johnson's brilliant "accounting" maneuvers?

Really? said...

One would think...but look at all the other nonsense they have been able to inflict on the district.

Anonymous said...

Since this is statewide legislation that any employee working 20 or more hours per week must be afforded the membership into the Retirement System, why did the annual audit not check to be sure all employees were receiving the benefit? IF the auditors checked, either someone lied to the auditors or the auditors did not do due diligence. What about looking at time sheets?

Anonymous said...

why did the annual audit not check to be sure all employees were receiving the benefit?

I don't think this is the type of thing that an audit typically verifies or examines in any way.

As an example (and not an allegation) one shouldn't expect the auditor to discover that a school district or government body has contracted with businesses which happen to be owned by relatives or business partners of the high ranking officials who approve the contracts. They don't typically review things like this in a standard audit so long as the numbers seem to balance and be in the proper boxes.

One shouldn't assume that it was necessarily the auditor's job to find what someone either intentionally did and/or did and then took measures to hide.

One shouldn't assume that not finding and reporting that something is wrong proves that everything possible was looked for and not found.