New Hampshire’s SAU 21 Hooked A Double-Dipper

by Steve MacDonald 

Meet Robert M. Sullivan.  Mr Sullivan, at the age of 58 ( I believe),  ‘retired’ as the Superintendent of the Middleboro Massachusetts School District, where he was earning 128,000.00 per year.  But like many “retired” public school superintendents, he didn’t stay retired for very long.  He’s currently the Superintendent for the six schools that make up SAU #21 in  New Hampshire. (Hampton Falls, North and South Hampton, Seabrook and Winnacunnet Co-op.)

But he’s retired!

“Retired?” Retired, to a Superintendent means you have a new job lined up before you leave the job you retired from, which the retiring Sullivan did.  But while Mr. Sullivan is working in the Granite State he isn’t moving to New Hampshire permanently.  He and his wife are staying in Massachusetts.  Why?

…the out-of-state job will enable Robert M. Sullivan to collect his full Massachusetts pension, estimated to be in the range of $70,000 to $85,000, while also being paid for his new position.

So Superintendent Sullivan ‘retired’ so he could double-dip, collecting a $70,000.00 to $85,000.00 per year pension from the taxpayers in Massachusetts, while collecting a generous salary in New Hampshire? (I have not identified Sullivan’s SAU 21 compensation, but the national average is around $160,000.00 per year, and the man he is replacing earned $126,000.00 so his new wage is probably…’adequate.’)

Mrs. Sullivan is probably doing rather well.  She is still a teacher and coach in Middleboro, so things are probably comfortable.  Comfortable enough so that when Bob says he would like a “second residence” in New Hampshire to avoid a “difficult daily commute,” that this would not be a huge burden on them.  Just hope no one registers to vote from that address.

So Double-Dipping is good work if you can get it, yes?   Here is a man who is probably more than qualified to do the job at SAU21.  I don’t doubt that.  And he is certainly young enough to do it for a number of years and probably be very effective.  And yet somehow, while still in the prime of his life, at what could turn out to be his peak earning years,  he could be making close to three times the national average in income per year from one school ditrict while simultaneously taking a pension almost double the national annual income on top of that from another, because he was allowed to ‘retire” from his other taxpayer funded job–and collect his substantial pension–long before he should have been able to.

Don’t you wish you could retire at 58 and start collecting $70-85K a year for the rest of your life–plus some walking around money from a side job that pays  a lot more?  And people wonder why public sector pensions are in distress, running deficits in the billions?  People wonder why taxpayers get a bit grumpy when public sector workers cry about raises, or complain about having to pay for more of their own pensions or benefits.   This is why!

Now I think everyone who is able should be Working to support themselves or their family.  Earning what you are worth is between you, and your employer, and no one else.  But burying taxpayers in billions in pensions and benefits package benefits that will pay out sums that most of those taxpayers will never ever see for themselves in actual wages, is a path that leads to the bursting of the public pension bubble.  Sure, it may not affect most public employees well along in their careers, but someone in the not so distant future is going to get screwed.

What  the up and coming career public employees need to understand is that the unions really don’t care or they’d be writing contracts that deflate the bubble now.   The majority of existing public employees, union or not, don’t seem to care either because if they did, they’d be pitching a lot more into their own benefits and pensions or voting for contracts that deflate that bubble faster to secure some kind of pension for future state workers.   But is  not what we appear to have.  While we are picking at the edges during a down economy, all abut a few are hoping someting happens to make the problem go away.  But the only thing that will do that on this trajectory is when someone says, yeah, I know you put x number of years in, but there’s no money.   That means no pensions, slash and burn layoffs, and all those people whose protection or education demanded higher wages or larger benefit plans–they’re all screwed too.

They will suffer because people who went before them took $80,000 dollar per year (or more) pensions while still more than able to earn as much or more than that, sometimes for ten, fifteen or even twenty years.  That is not what the pension was meant for.  And it has to stop.

This is not, by the way, the fault of Bob Sullivan.   I do not begrudge him his pension windfall.   He is just following the “rules.”   But wouldn’t it look a lot better if he could let someone who hadn’t retired on a decent pension get a shot at improving their career instead of improving his own after he retired on a wage most Americans will never see in their lifetimes?  Is there no sense of guilt at screwing taxpayers in Massachusetts out so much in a pension, for so many years, while being able bodied enough to cross the border and earn even more on top of that, doing the exact same job, someplace else?

Mr. Sullivan is not alone.  There are more than a few such superintendents in New Hampshire right now, doing the same thing.  And yes, we are going to talk about them as well.

You are reading "NH SAU 21 Hooks a Double Dipper"  by Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com.(Home)

For Quite Some Time

For quite some time more than a few of us out here in the private sector have been paying into our own retirement plans--if we can--for years.  After the Housing bubble burst many of us began reducing the amount we contributed as a lousy economy consumed opportunities, wage growth and jobs--our neighbors or even our own. 

Companies, small businesses in particular, that were once able to provide some benefits and 401K matching dollars shifted gears, re-directing that revenue (if they had it) to keeping the business afloat so they could pay enough remaining core employees to keep the company a company--with desks, paperclips, post it notes, and a space to keep them in.  We paid for our own retirement plans, owners and managers paid for theirs, took pay cuts, employees took pay cuts, millions accepted reduced hours, part time status, or were overcome by the recession and had to be let go.

At the same time various levels of government were handing out (or handed) Billions and Billions of dollars that did not exist, to prop up the public sector unions.  These unions, collective bargaining groups (emphasis on collective) were the primary benefactors of the past two years accumulation of debt.  Government rules favored them in opposition to all else and in contradiction to common sense, not just for cash handouts but the hand out of jobs as well.  And even at the local level, the public sectors union handlers, who are really nothing more than fat cat capitalists selling shares in human flesh for a profit in the from of a dues check each pay period, have fought against the tide to raise salaries, benefits, and keep jobs that must be paid for by the people going the opposite direction.

So the public sector unions, operating as nothing more than a private business whose goal is to grow revenue, continued to do so at taxpayers expense while whining about the private sectors greed and malfeasance.

Why can't we call them out for this?  Why are taxpayers not afforded the same kind of consumer protections from the fat cat, union boss, price gougers who hold us hostage with fears of neglected children, and declining public safety if we don't pony up the extortion money we don't have to fund wage and pension schemes so far out of parity with our own?

November 2010 was as much a reaction to this addiction to taxpayer money as anything.  But the union bosses persist.  And many of the employees in their care, stewed in a culture of entitlement, ride along on the tide, while supporting a corrupt and unholy alliance with the democrat party to protect and defend the unions and their monopoly as the legalized money launderers of choice to convert extorted taxpayer dollars into democrat party campaign contributions.

But this isn't like some business that you can claim (right or wrong) is stockpiling cash to weather a long and uncertain fiscal winter.  The evil capitalist fat cats on the other side of the public sector equation (you and I) are the people who have paying into their own retirement, giving up wages and advancement, and losing jobs in the million, while the cost of government--that would be the cost to keep and maintain public sector workers--continues to climb.  And there is no magic pot of money to fill the pension and benefit holes.  Obama and the 111th congress have spent it all.

All we have left is debt, and no one in the world can pay it off for us.  So something has to give.

It is time to put government on a diet. It is time for equality and fairness in the workplace and if that means forcing public employees to prop up their own pensions then so be it.  If it requires us to ask them to pay significantly more for their benefits, then that is how it has to be.  If it requires eliminating pensions, benefits, and jobs then that is how it will go down, and there is no time like now to do it.

Never in recent history has there been a more diverse and qualified pool of willing and able bodied persons who would be more than happy just to have a job than there is now.   These are people who just want a pay check, and they will work long and hard to get it.  They will be dedicated, fast learners, looking for a reliable opportunity, and they are out there in the millions.

So labor is cheap at a time when income for public sector costs and debt service to sustain it is at an all time high.  How simple a problem is this to solve?

The taxpayer need to step up and put the public sector union fat cats out of work.  When that happens, people who have to work for the taxpayers again may rethink how valuable having a job is in this economy, when there are probably 1000 people who would gladly work longer and harder and do their job for less.

The cats can't eat better than the masters.  The money is just not there, and there are no more bailouts to soften the blow.   It is time for a public sector union reckoning.  And that has to go for non-union government employees as well.

We cannot afford you.  If you would like to soul search over how this came to be, feel free to do so.  If you would like to play the "can't cut services, then explain why you would let them be cut rather than provide them for less.  We've been doing it ourselves for quite sometime.  Now it's your turn.

Image Source: Newsreel Blog 

Cross Posted

Unhitch The Debt Wagon

We watch with amusement as the legislature attempts again to reconcile it's bad fiscal manners, elbows on the table, slurping soup, and reaching across each others plates as they huddle over another last minute  committee of conference.  At the top of the menu is the budget, which is a coarse left over from last year that no one can stomach, or manage to keep down. 

At the heart of the debate, as always, is the cost of government, and how to pay for it, with cutting those costs painfully low on the list of priorities--more a position of last resort if, you know, they fail to come up with a more diplomatic way to separate residents from their dollars.   And that should concern everyone.  Government is expensive, and hard working people have to give up part of their livelihoods to support it.  And while some government is necessary--very little I must point out--it should be even more concerning that the people making the most noise are the ones looking for a way to pay for more of it.  This is not indicative of a thought process focused on keeping more of your money in your pocket.  It is evidence of a commitment to expanding costs without regard for how to pay for them--the very mission statement of the past two democrat run legislatures.

So how much more government do you think we'll need? 

No liberal can or will answer that question because they know the next question is, "well then how will we pay for that?"  This is why they had to imagine revenue to make the spending appear within our means.

Has New Hampshire figured out the shell game yet?  We may not know until November.  But keep this one additional point in mind.  The Granite State already has 6.5 Billion dollars in unfunded pension liabilities.  Every new state employee adds to that burden.  Every employee we try to keep at the state or local level that we never could afford in the first place, is one we are leading down a primrose path--that money does not exist and there is no reason to believe it ever will.  Or are you suggesting that there is 7 billion in untapped wealth waiting to be mined?

We've not yet had a legislature in recent memory that has been willing to face this problem head on lead by either party.  But only the democrats have gone out of their way to make it worse.  We need to clean House, and then we need to bite the bullet.  State spending is unsustainable.  The course of the economy under Obama has us--at best--on a long slow arc of mediocrity if we don't in fact plummet off a cliff tied to the federal debt he and the democrats have amassed.  So it's time to elect more people in New Hampshire, dedicated to states rights and smaller government, who will make some hard choices and unhitch us from the federal feeding trough and our own shortsightedness so that if (or when) the troubles begin anew, we'll have a better chance of standing on our own two feet.