Double pensions boost retirement of Gwinnett educators | www.myajc.com

The Gwinnett County school district is spending tens of millions of tax dollars every year to offer their educators the Cadillac of retirement plans — allowing some career employees to draw almost a full salary through their golden years.

Across the nation, most teachers, government workers and even private sector employees would be green with pension envy. Gwinnett teachers who put in 30 years can bring home 87% of their final pay, with a promise of a little annual boost.

And J. Alvin Wilbanks, superintendent and CEO at the state’s largest school district, could wind up making 98 percent of his final salaries: $449,000-plus a year in retirement, based on district information.

That’s because Gwinnett educators are getting two pensions, the mandatory state pension and a rare, second pension. A combination of employee contributions and state and local tax money supports their participation in the Teacher Retirement System of Georgia.

But the second, local pension is funded 100 percent by the district — and thus Gwinnett taxpayers — at a cost of $139 million in the past three years alone.

According to information from the state Department of Audits and other financial reports, no other Georgia school district has a pension plan like Gwinnett’s.

It’s even helping the bottom line of current workers. The district boasts on its website that employee take-home pay is 5.2 percent higher than if the district were participating in Social Security. Employees pay only 1 percent of their earnings to support the district’s long-term disability fund.

Rick Cost, chief financial officer for Gwinnett County Public Schools, described the local pension plan as a “valuable tool in attracting and retaining outstanding teachers and support staff during times of fiscal austerity.”

With teachers’ salaries stagnant for about a decade, “a secure retirement program” has become “increasingly important,” Cost said.

Wilbanks said the pension is smart business. “Every good employer takes care of its people,” he said.

To Steve Ramey, though, using taxpayer money for the local pension plan “sounds extremely excessive.”

“That’s not to say that teachers don’t work hard and deserve a lot of money. They do,” said Ramey, with the Founding Fathers Tea Party in Gwinnett. But he said this appears to be continuation of what’s “been a long history in Gwinnett of abuse of taxpayer money.”

[Wilbanks] earned $503,622 last fiscal year, and $413,997 the year before, according to district records, making him one of the nation’s highest-paid superintendents.