YOU BE THE JUDGE — Adjunct Faculty Member Removed From Higher Ed Pension Program

Every day unit members call their locals or the Council office seeking the Union’s help with all sorts of employment related problems. Your local officers and Council staff—Steve Young, Bennett Muraskin, Debra Davis and Bruce Howard — are available to help you with all sorts of work related difficulties.

Most of the calls we receive at the Council office are related to grievances and general inquiries about contract interpretation. We also receive numerous calls about health benefits and pensions. Recently, we had to deal with a unique pension issue at one of our campuses involving an adjunct faculty member.

An adjunct faculty member contacted his local Union president to report that he was being switched from the Alternate Benefits Plan (ABP) to a lesser plan called the Defined Contribution Retirement Program (DCRP). The Local president called us and we started a preliminary investigation into the matter.

It seems that our member has two distinct jobs at his university. He’s been an adjunct since the fall of 2007, at which time he enrolled in the ABP and has participated in it up to now without any break in service. In May of 2008, our member accepted a second job at the university as a Professional Specialist earning an hourly wage. He has been in that position without a break in service since 2008.

Is there really a problem?

From 2008 to 2012 the adjunct faculty member’s ABP contributions were based on the combined earnings from his adjunct and Professional Specialist jobs. In most of those years, he earned more as a Professional Specialist than he did as an adjunct. In 2013, the University told him that his ABP contributions could only come from his position as an adjunct so they changed his Professional Specialist employee designation to that of a per diem employee. From 2013 to the present his ABP contributions were taken solely from his adjunct pay.

Then in April, the University informed our member that his designation was going to be changed back to a Professional Specialist, that he would be removed from ABP and that he would be enrolled in the DCRP — involuntarily. Why? The university claimed that the state law says all adjuncts that work in two positions at one institution must have only one pension and that it will be the one connected to the higher paid position. The University relied on Chapter 1, P.L. 2010 as a basis for taking this action. This is the amended pension law that made a number of changes to eligibility requirements (i.e., positions eligible for service credit) to the different state administered retirement systems.

The Council staff did a preliminary analysis of the law and of the member’s employment history and determined that the University had incorrectly interpreted the law. However, because this is a matter of law we turned to our attorney for a more nuanced analysis of the statute as it applies here. It turns out the Council was correct and here is why. The amended statute specifically provides that no public employee will be eligible for inclusion in the DCRP “with respect to any public employment” if otherwise eligible for or is enrolled in another state administered pension, including the ABP. Remember our member has been in the ABP since 2007.

The University also got it wrong when it based its decision on a statutory requirement of a single pension for employees with dual positions. Chapter 1, P.L. 2010 states those employees who are eligible for the Teachers Pension Annuity Fund (TPAF) or the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and who are employed or become employed in more than one position must be enrolled in only one pension based on the higher paying position. This did not apply here because our member was not eligible for either TPAF or PERS in the first place!

It took one phone call from our attorney to the University’s attorney to have the matter corrected. We are currently looking into whether there are other adjunct faculty who are in the same predicament.

In the meantime, the Union has to wonder if this was merely an honest mistake in interpreting the amended statute or is something else going on?

The ABP contribution is 5% employee and 8% employer based; whereas the DCRP is 5.5% employee and only 3% employer based. In the long run, this would have been a significant loss to the employee and a boon to the employer. Is the employer trying to balance the books on the backs of adjunct faculty?

YOU BE THE JUDGE

If this has happened to you or you know someone who’s being involuntarily switched out of a pension system for any reason, call your Local Union for assistance.