County school board members are drawing criticism for voting to give themselves a public pension benefit. But the real problem is not with the new benefit per se. Rather, it is how they arrived at the vote: On a last-minute addition to the agenda that was rushed through their business meeting with precious little discussion, as if it had to be almost hidden from public view. The fact that just two of the nine board members – Everett Fairchild and Rhonda Thurman – voted against it made it seem even more suspect and greedy.
In tight times and with a public so sensitized to frozen wages, mandatory furloughs, high joblessness and the need to control public spending, that rough-shod sleight-of-hand was akin to a thumb in the eye of school advocates and teachers, who worry about unfunded classroom needs.
Under pressure, the board has agreed to a re-vote on the pension resolution next Tuesday. At that meeting, board members rightly owe the public a fair discussion of the issue and a full accounting of its cost.
Still, school board members may well deserve pension benefits from the school system. Their part-time positions and work loads are roughly comparable to those of members of the City Council and County Commission, whose part-time members also receive pensions from the public bodies they represent. School board members’ public salaries, however, are less than half of those for City Council and County Commission members. Based on those factors, approval of a pension benefit would seem fair.
The value of the benefit is another issue altogether. It seems rich for the work. The benefit, applied retroactively to current board members’ service, was fixed at $750 per year of service. Members also would be immediately vested, meaning they become eligible for a pension benefit after their first year of service. Members, moreover, would not have to contribute to the pension fund.