Layoff Plan Reveals Paperwork Problem

A decision to eliminate the jobs of 25 retired educators working part-time has revealed a longstanding problem at the Board of Education: a failure to follow proper procedures in filling positions with retirees.

The reason it matters: The process is supposed to ensure that positions go to new teachers, with the potential of creating a needed pipeline of talent, instead of to retirees who double-dip on pensions and paychecks.

The Independent discovered that problem after the Board of Education learned Monday about layoff plans. Twenty-five retired educators who’ve returned to work in the schools part-time will receive a final notice that their careers are over — the first in what might be a wave of pink slips, as the school district tries to close a multi-million dollar budget deficit.

Next week, 72 retired, part-time employees, who are still on the school payroll, will receive notifications that their work is being cut back. Twenty-five of them will be laid off entirely. The other 52 will see their hours reduced by half, effective April 20.

Then, by June 13, when the school year ends, all non-essential part-time staff — defined as any employees who do not contribute directly to a student’s classroom experience or meet a state requirement — will be eliminated. Over the summer, the superintendent’s transition team plans to analyze which non-essential part-time positions they can afford next school year.

Those reductions to the district’s 1,210 part-time positions will result in about $280,000 savings, a finance official told the Board of Education’s Finance & Operations Committee on Monday evening at 54 Meadow St., in an unplanned announcement that wasn’t previewed on the meeting agenda.

The reduction in part-time staffing is one of the first three major budget cuts that Superintendent Carol Birks’s team has proposed so far to start closing a $6.7 million gap in this year’s school spending. Along with minimizing work orders to contractors and asking the unions for concessions, she’s hoping to quickly make up $1.45 million.

Birks is being aided by Darrell V. Hill, Hartford’s former chief financial officer, hired part-time himself to stabilize the district’s finances during the transition. Hill has been tasked with closing this year’s deficit and preparing at least $5 million in cuts next year, after the mayor halved the Board of Education’s requested budget increase.

“I know this is always hard, especially to walk into this, but I commend you and Mr. Hill for being thorough and deep-diving,” Tamiko Jackson-McArthur, a board member, told Birks at Monday’s meeting. ​“You’ve got a plan to keep the quality of services while taking care of what you need to money-wise. We’re in a budget crisis, and you’re making courageous decisions.”

So far Birks and Hill have met with 27 principals to discuss further site-based cuts. They plan to meet with the rest by mid-week.

“We’re also looking at central office, not just schools,” Birks added. ​“For the entire staff, we’re really analyzing costs.” But while those reductions are still being drawn up, retirees will be the first to go.

Missing Paperwork

But before the retirees officially leave from the school district, the district’s human resources office will likely ask them to fill out paperwork that the district should have already submitted to the state when they started.

Teachers who are already receiving a state pension are allowed to return to work at a public school only under select circumstances — all of which must be documented by the employer.

Under the state’s reemployment rules, retired teachers can return to a strapped area — 14 priority school districts (including New Haven) or 10 shortage subject areas — for one year.

If they want to stay on for a second, the school district must document that no qualified, non-retired candidate is available. That’s judged by how aggressively the district spreads the word about vacancies in newspaper classifieds and online job forums, as well as the number of non-retired candidates who applied, interviewed and didn’t get the position.

All that information must be sent up to the Connecticut Teachers’ Retirement Board (CTRB) in keeping with federal and state laws that put limits on double-dipping.

If a retiree stays on for a third year in a shortage area, they must take a pay cut, earning no more than 45 percent of the maximum full-time annual salary for a position, and their employer must send another form verifying their salary. (Other teachers choose to have their pensions suspended while they’re back at work.)

A Freedom of Information Act request to the CTRB last month turned up only three New Haven educators who’d sent in their forms.

Reggie Mayo, who gets a $14,684 check from the pension fund each month, told the state he’d be working at 45 percent of his salary as interim superintendent. (Mayo returned from retirement to fill the post while the board sought a replacement for former Superintendent Garth Harries.) Two other high-school teachers said they’d be working in shortage ares where it’s hard to find new hires.

New Haven Public Schools didn’t send in any paperwork for the 72 part-time retirees, who all work under 20 hours a week, according to what the state dug up. District officials confirmed it’s been standard procedure to fill out the forms for full-time employees, but they haven’t always done so for part-timers.

Board President Darnell Goldson has made an issue of the retirees who’ve been brought back out of retirement, questioning how and why they got the job. Almost a year ago, at a school board meeting, he asked Mayo to produce a list of hires. No sheet ever surfaced.

“I would be disappointed if the proper forms were not filed with state authorities. It has been quite a challenge trying to determine the extent to which we have rehired these retirees and what exactly most are doing,” Goldson stated Tuesday. ​“I have every confidence that the Superintendent, the CFO, and the Human Resources Director will correct whatever issues arise during this transition process, and get to the Board the information we will need to make the tough decisions for the district.”