Who’s watching out for your financial
future?
Missouri NEA supports two candidates
for PSRS Board of Trustees.
Important
Dates
PSRS Board Decisions Affect You
| Who's watching out for 21 percent of
your salary?
Chris
Belcher | Jan McClenahan
No matter your age or years of experience in education, chances
are that someday you hope to retire. When that time comes,
you’ll be counting on there being benefits available
to support you once you’re no longer earning a regular
income.
In Missouri, a seven-member board of trustees is responsible
for overseeing the Public School Retirement System and Non-Teacher
School Employee Retirement System. Members of the PSRS will
elect two new board members in April.
Missouri NEA has endorsed Chris Belcher,
Warrensburg, and Jan McClenahan, Ritenour
NEA, as the candidates with the experience and the knowledge
to protect education employees’ future.
 “It’s
time for a change,” MNEA President Greg Jung says. “With
two seats on the PSRS Board of Trustees up for election, we
have an excellent opportunity to elect new responsible voices
to look after the interests of PSRS and NTRS members.”
Today, PSRS and NTRS are in crisis.
Over the past few years, PSRS and NTRS investments have suffered
along with the economy:
-
A recent actuarial study reveals that PSRS and NTRS
are currently underfunded to the tune of $5.6 billion.
-
The year 2001–02 is the first year since the system
was created in 1946 that benefits paid to retirees exceeded
contributions to the system.
As a result, your contribution rate (paid equally by school
employees and their school districts) is increasing, and consideration
is being given to reducing benefits for those who will retire
in the future. Actuarial studies have already been conducted
to determine the impact of various potential reductions in
benefits.
Decisions
of PSRS board affect school employees now and in the future
Whether this is your first year of teaching or your last,
the decisions made by the Board of Trustees of the Public
School Retirement System of Missouri affect your life.
Among the important decisions made by the seven-member PSRS
board that affect your current salary as well as your future
retirement benefits are:
-
Setting the contribution rate for both education employees
and school districts;
-
Determining the cost-of-living adjustment that retirees
receive;
-
Hearing all appeals relative to PSRS benefits, including
buy-back appeals, maternity leave, etc.;
-
Determining how PSRS funds will be invested; and
-
Deciding whether to introduce, support or oppose retirement
legislation such as “25 and out.”
“Who serves on the PSRS Board of Trustees matters to
active teachers and school employees just as much as it matters
to retirees,” says Greg Jung, MNEA president. “The
trustees determine how much of our salaries and school district
budgets will be invested in the retirement system, and the
decisions they make determine the benefits that are available
to retirees now and in the future.
Who’s watching
out for 21 percent of your salary?
Every year, public school teachers in Missouri (other than
those employed in the St. Louis City and Kansas City 33 School
Districts) have 21 cents of every dollar they earn contributed
to the Missouri Public School Retirement System. Each teacher
contributes 10.5 percent from his or her paycheck, while employing
school districts match that amount with another 10 1/2 percent.
Education support professionals contribute five cents of
every dollar earned to the Non-Teacher School Employee Retirement
System. This amount is also matched by employing school districts,
for a total contribution of 10 percent of every non-certified
staff member’s salary.
Since PSRS/NTRS was created in 1946, those contributions
and the investment returns on them have grown to $22 billion—more
than the entire budget for the state of Missouri. However,
the system lost $2.5 billion in assets during the economic
downturn over the past several years, making 2001-2002 the
first year that benefits paid out to retirees exceeded contributions
received. Compounding the problems faced by the system is
the fact that almost half of Missouri’s teachers will
be eligible to begin drawing benefits in the next 10 years.
To restore the retirement system to sound footing, the amount
contributed for each certified staff member will increase
to 22 percent as of July 2004, and the contribution for each
NTRS member goes up to 11.5 percent. Additional contribution
rate increases may be required in the future.
Who determines how your PSRS money is managed, how much of
your salary you will contribute to the retirement system and
what your benefits will be when you retire? Those decisions
and more are the responsibility of a seven-member Board of
Trustees. Four of these seats are filled by election in which
all active and retired members of the system can vote.
As a certified or non-certified member of PSRS/NTRS, you
have a vote in determining who makes the critical decisions
regarding your current contribution rate and your future retirement
benefits, but you currently don’t have a voice on the
board: There are no Missouri NEA members on the PSRS board
today. Furthermore, there is no one from the greater St. Louis
area on the current PSRS board to speak for the tens of thousands
of active and retired educators in the most populous area
of the state. Clearly, it’s time for change on the PSRS
board.
With two of the four elected seats on the PSRS board to be
filled this spring, every PSRS and NTRS member can vote for
two candidates. This gives you an opportunity to help make
change happen by electing two new competent and qualified
trustees.
Important
dates in the PSRS Board of Trustees election
Jan. 5—PSRS members sign petitions to
place the names of Chris Belcher and Jan McClenahan on the
ballot.
Feb. 19—Petitions must be postmarked.
April 21—PSRS members receive ballots
in the mail and vote for Chris Belcher and Jan McClenahan
for the PSRS Board of Trustees.
May 6—Ballots must be postmarked.
|  Chris
Belcher is assistant superintendent
for student services in the Warrensburg R-VI School
District, Johnson County.
Formerly a professor in the department of curriculum
and instruction at Central Missouri State University,
Warrensburg, he also worked as assistant to the superintendent
and principal in the Blue Springs R-IV School District
and as assistant principal at Liberty Junior High School
in Liberty, MO. He began his education career as a high
school biology and chemistry teacher in Holden and Blue
Springs.
Belcher earned his doctorate in educational leadership
from the University of Missouri in 1992.
He also holds bachelor’s, master’s and
education specialist degrees from Central Missouri State
University.
Belcher was honored as the Missouri State Teacher Association’s
District Administrator of the Year in 1992 and received
the Blue Springs Jaycees Outstanding Young Educator
Award in 1991.
He is a member of the Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development, National Staff Development Council,
Consortium for Research in Educational Assessment and
Teacher Evaluation and the American Educational Research
Association.
Belcher has consulted with many Missouri school districts
and with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary
Education on the implementation of performance-based
teacher evaluation. He is a central region facilitator
for DESE’s leadership academy, has presented many
workshops and seminars and has published numerous papers
and articles.
He has extensive training and experience in large-
and small-group facilitation and consensus building.
“Chris Belcher’s experience as a teacher,
school administrator and teacher educator makes him
an ideal candidate for the PSRS Board of Trustees,”
says Greg Jung, MNEA president. “Many educators
across the state and nation have worked with him during
his career. We are confident his will be an influential
and well-respected voice on the board.”
Contact Chris Belcher
Jan McClenahan is an elementary
teacher of gifted students in the Ritenour School District
in St. Louis County. Before her current position, she
taught gifted and talented middle school students in
Brown County, KS, second graders in Goddard, KS, and
first graders in Hazelwood, MO.
McClenahan earned her master’s degree in special
education from Kansas State University in 1988 and her
bachelor’s degree in elementary education from
the University of Missouri in 1967.
McClenahan was honored as Kansas Special Education
Teacher of the Year in 1994 and received the Kansas
NEA District Outstanding Educator Award in 2000 and
a statewide teaching award for “Invent America!”
in 1991.
She is a member of the Gifted Association of Missouri
as well as MNEA and NEA. She currently serves as president
of Ritenour NEA and a member of MNEA’s Teaching
and Learning Committee.
In 1993, Jan was one of 40 teachers nationwide selected
to attend a week-long course offered through the education
division of the New York Stock Exchange. In this course,
she studied finances, investments and the stock market.
For the last 10 years, she has taught the basics of
the stock market and investing to middle school gifted
students.
“Jan will provide a strong and well-informed
voice for St. Louis-area educators on the PSRS Board
of Trustees,” says Greg Jung, MNEA president.
“The thousands of active and retired educators
in the St. Louis area do not currently have a voice
on the PSRS Board of Trustees. Electing Jan McClenahan
to the board next April will change that in a most positive
way.”
Contact Jan
McClenahan
|
by Carol K. Schmoock
MNEA assistant executive director
|
