Man Earns $300,000 Public Pension

[GeezerMan]

I must get a job with the school district soon. His pension is 316,000.00, his new school job pays 225,000.00. His wife makes 250,000.00 working for the school district. That's a total of 791,000.00. Not bad...


http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/new_york_state/new-york-pension-problem-20100622

Updated: Wednesday, 23 Jun 2010, 8:47 AM EDT
Published : Tuesday, 22 Jun 2010, 9:24 PM EDTReported by LINDA SCHMIDT
MYFOXNY.COM - New York's fiscal health is poor. The great recession that hit the country has taken its toll on the state, too. Lawmakers in Albany haven't been able to settle on a state budget because of a huge spending and earning gap. One of the critical problems facing the state and local governments are pension funds that are way underfunded.
Fox 5 News first reported on James Hunderfund in May. The retired superintendent of the Commack School System on Long Island earns a pension of about $316,000 a year. On top of that, Hunderfund is now the superintendent of the Malverne School District. Fox 5 obtained his contract, which shows he makes about $225,000 annually plus he gets 18 paid sick days and 23 paid vacation days a year.

His wife is the superintendent of the Locust Valley Central School District on Long Island. Her contract shows she makes $250,000 a year. When she retires she'll get a pension.
All of this is perfectly legal and paid for by taxpayers.
Fred Gorman, the founder of a watchdog group called Long Islanders for Educational Reform, says the state employee pension system is bleeding taxpayers dry and that the state Legislature needs to step up and change the system.
The website seethroughny.net lists some state pension earners. It shows a retiree from the New York Public Library earning a pension of more than $188,000 year.
George Philip, the former executive director of the New York State Teachers Retirement system is one of the top pension earners at $261,000. Philip is now president of SUNY Albany.
In fact, seethroughny.net indicates 2,400 retired state employees make more than $100,000 annually in pensions, but that number is actually higher because not all of the pension lists from New York unions have been made public yet.
Erik Engquist with Crain's New York Business said the state won't go broke from the union pensions, because the state will always put it back on taxpayers to foot the bill.

 

[Trianon]

wow, that's some crazy moolah for superintendant...

 

[Circlenaut]

Justify this spidey!

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Whats the problem here? The state made promises to pay and spent the money they should have had saved for this obligation and now people are complaining the pensions are too high? Fuck that.

 

[GeezerMan]

I wonder what the average big city superintendent made in 1940, adjusted for inflation? Back when U.S. public schools produced a good product.

 

[Trianon]

Whats the problem here? The state made promises to pay and spent the money they should have had saved for this obligation and now people are complaining the pensions are too high? Fuck that.

I am just wondering if position like that is THAT valuable, whoever negotiated that contract on the side of the govt is an idiot, that's all. And if I was in charge, because of the budgetary problems I would try to re-negotiate the contract, as it seems that compensation is excessive. Somehow I think not everything is kosher with this deal, not in this day and age.

 

[dainthomas]

People do that all time (especially retired military). This guy just gets more because being a school superintendent is probably pretty specialized.

Jealous people be jealous.

 

[drebo]

Justify this spidey!

There is no justification for it. I think that most sane people, regardless of political affiliation, agree on two things relating to our education system in this country: 1) there are too many administrators; and, 2) those administrators are paid far too much money.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

People do that all time (especially retired military). This guy just gets more because being a school superintendent is probably pretty specialized.

Jealous people be jealous.

this. I would expect if I had 40 years under my belt and was an expert I would be compensated appropriately.

 

[spidey07]

Justify this spidey!

I don't have a problem with it. Good for him. Don't let jealousy cloud your view of contractual obligations. I would imagine with the number of schools this superintendent was in charge of his compensation was accurate to his level of responsibility, education and decision making influence.

Superintendents and other administrators are like the board members and executives of any company and they are compensated well because of their experience and talent.

And the article is VERY misleading. Administrator pension systems are paid for by the employee, they contribute to it. Technically I could draw on a pension from a previous job even though I'm still working, there is nothing new or wrong about that. The pension is my money and is contractually owed to me.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Whats the problem here? The state made promises to pay and spent the money they should have had saved for this obligation and now people are complaining the pensions are too high? Fuck that.

It shows the lack of oversight in government and the huge lack of public awareness that things like this were going on. People should not be mad at this guy or his wife, and these news articles piss me off because it is almost as if they are on a witch hunt. If people want to get angry about this, they should be mad that ridiculous agreements like this were made in the first place and steps should be taken to ensure they don't happen again.

There is no justification for this kind of pension money for his kind of position. None. But the guy has a contract and it is owed to him.

 

[Genx87]

Think of the kids.

 

[Hacp]

Whats the problem here? The state made promises to pay and spent the money they should have had saved for this obligation and now people are complaining the pensions are too high? Fuck that.

What is the problem here? The problem is government suffocating taxpayers to pay for scum like this. We need less government because government is wasteful and inefficient. This is just another example of the inefficiency of government.

 

[zephyrprime]

Eh, something's gotta give eventually. The guy does have a contract and the government did agree to pay him. Eventually though, tax receipts just won't be enough and the municipal government will enter bankruptcy at which point all of this stuff will be restructured.

The problem with these pensions is two fold: they are unfunded liabilities. There is little savings for them and revenue for them is taken from current cash flow. Also, they do not show up as a liability on accounting records because government entities get to use crazy accounting standards made just for them.

 

[MotF Bane]

There is no justification for it. I think that most sane people, regardless of political affiliation, agree on two things relating to our education system in this country: 1) there are too many administrators; and, 2) those administrators are paid far too much money.

This.

 

[Thump553]

There is no justification for it. I think that most sane people, regardless of political affiliation, agree on two things relating to our education system in this country: 1) there are too many administrators; and, 2) those administrators are paid far too much money.

Quite true. I live in a small town that has one elementary school (middle and high school are in a regional district). State law requires every school district have a supervisor, so we pay for a supervisor that oversees exactly one principal. Ridiculous, especially in these days of widespread teacher and police layoffs (the larger town next door is laying off roughly 20 teachers this year).

Waste is waste.

 

[Throckmorton]

Why are the anti-salary-cappers suddenly in favor of capping salaries, which they claim reduces your ability to attract good talent?

 

[alphatarget1]

Why are the anti-salary-cappers suddenly in favor of capping salaries, which they claim reduces your ability to attract good talent?

Fire these overpaid people and replace them with someone cheaper. Unless they have done something amazing, they do not deserve that much money.

I bet there will be thousands of qualified applicants lined up if they fired these leeches and offered a new position at 100k.

The president at my former university makes 200k a year. The president of Texas A&M University with about 50k student+faculty+staff makes 451k a year. Are you telling me that this public school superintendent douche deserves 250k a year?

Hell, Obama only makes 400k a year. For the record, this salary is higher than the salary of the Governor of New York.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Out of the 342,543 searchable retirees, 1,378 collect annual pensions exceeding $100,000, and 68 receive over $150,000

Doesn't seem exceptionally out-of-wack.

I'm not surprised so many of them move to Florida and North Carolina (we call 'em "Half-Backs"). Tough to live in NY on a pension like that ...



edit: I fergit ... Link on #s


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[IndyColtsFan]

Fire these overpaid people and replace them with someone cheaper. Unless they have done something amazing, they do not deserve that much money.

I bet there will be thousands of qualified applicants lined up if they fired these leeches and offered a new position at 100k.

The president at my former university makes 200k. The president of Texas A&M University with about 50k student+faculty+staff makes 451k a year. Are you telling me that this public school superintendent douche deserves 250k a year?

Hell, Obama only makes 400k a year.

This. Think of how many teachers could be retained if we canned administrators and their bloated salaries instead.

And to Throckmorton -- there is a huge difference between capping the salaries of people in private industry (which most of us are against) and exercising some sort of sound fiscal responsibility when negotiating contracts with government employees.

 

[alphatarget1]

Doesn't seem exceptionally out-of-wack.

I'm not surprised so many of them move to Florida and North Carolina (we call 'em "Half-Backs"). Tough to live in NY on a pension like that ...

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Tough to live on a 100k pension? Only a liberal like you would say that. Unless you live in NYC, 100k is a lot of money for a retiree whose house is most likely paid off and have no large expenses like a middle class family would have.

You can most definitely live on 100k a year in the most expensive suburbs of the SF bay area if you had an easy job with the government for 30 years and a paid off house. Why should the taxpayers fund lavish lifestyles of public retirees?

 

[spidey07]

I can just smell the jealousy from here. None of you has the education, experience or training to do their job and are simply jealous. Those salaries and pensions are quite normal for almost any top administrator for a good sized county/district.

If you think it is such good money and benefits (and it certainly is) then go get your masters, teach for 10 years, move into admin at the bottom, build up 20+ years of experience more, get your doctorate and apply! Oh, and you'll have to beat out all the other qualified candidates.

 

[Throckmorton]

Fire these overpaid people and replace them with someone cheaper. Unless they have done something amazing, they do not deserve that much money.

I bet there will be thousands of qualified applicants lined up if they fired these leeches and offered a new position at 100k.

The president at my former university makes 200k a year. The president of Texas A&M University with about 50k student+faculty+staff makes 451k a year. Are you telling me that this public school superintendent douche deserves 250k a year?

Hell, Obama only makes 400k a year. For the record, this salary is higher than the salary of the Governor of New York.

The head football coach at my former university, Mack Brown, makes $5 million a year. Seems clear to me that universities should be paying their presidents MUCH more, and the same goes for the president, governors, etc. Unless football really is more important than running a university, state, or the federal government.

You know in Ancient Greece, politicians didn't get ANY salary. Sounds great right? Saves money?

Well what it does is make sure that ONLY the rich can hold political posts.

 

[JTsyo]

Does the state actually pay for school administrators? I thought schools were run by the town.

 

[spidey07]

Does the state actually pay for school administrators? I thought schools were run by the town.

They are normally employees of the county school system and paid by county property taxes. There are some state and federal funds that go to them however.

Why do you think rich counties/areas tend to have the best schools? They have the most money and best administrators (because they can afford top talent by paying high salaries).

A search for a good superintendent is like an executive search for a CEO. They recruit them nationally. And like a CEO, they have very broad reaching experience and responsibility. That's why they are paid so well.