MASA Council Highlights

May 21, 2008

The MASA Executive Board and Council met on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at the University Club in East Lansing , Michigan . Here are some of the highlights of those meetings.

1. The Executive Board received a final report from the Retirement Issues Study Group. This group was convened January 2008 by Executive Director William Mayes to monitor issues MASA retirees were experiencing with the Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System (MPSERS) and to recommend possible remedies. In brief, the board's charge to the group was: 1) To protect the right of local boards to determine appropriate compensation rates for school administrators; and 2) To ensure that all public school employees can determine with reasonable accuracy the amount of retirement compensation they can expect. The problems being most frequently reported by MASA retirees included: 1) Denial of compensation that was indexed to MIP and FICA payments; 2) Salary increases “above normal salary increases” (NSI) for superintendents; 3) Denial of compensation regarded by MPSERS to be bonus or fringe benefits rather than compensation.
   
   The Executive Board will review the report before presenting it to Council later this summer. In the meantime, the Board charged MASA staff to post to a “contract & retirement” page on the MASA website critical information that might influence contract negotiations and retirement decisions.
2. The work group shared with the Council some key information for spring contract negotiations. The MPSERS at present will disallow (when calculating Final Average Compensation) any compensation that is “above a normal salary increase” ( NSI ) for superintendents for a given year. They calculate the annual “normal salary increase” after the first reporting cycle of each fiscal year as follows: 1) superintendents are grouped into four categories based on payroll size; 2) the annual average percentage increase is calculated and doubled to allow a more generous and flexible deviation of “normal.” Because superintendents’ annual salaries are limited to this “normal salary increase” for the purposes of retirement calculation, we strongly urge superintendents and their financial consultants to be aware of the implications of agreeing to a low starting salary (or foregoing a pay raise in a given year) with the intention of “making it up” later with higher than average pay increases. Please consider:
1. MPSERS will not allow you to smooth out your increases retroactively, so you will lose compensation credit on the year your salary jumps above the average.
2. On the years you take a zero pay raise, you lower the “normal salary increase” for other superintendents in your group.
3. Executive Director William Mayes thanked the 07-08 council members, honored region representatives who will be leaving the Council, and hosted an orientation session for incoming Council members.
4. The Legislative Committee, led by Brad Biladeau, cautioned members to budget conservatively, because there is much yet to be learned about the state of the economy and the number of students remaining in the state. The counsel approved the following action item as recommended by the Legislative Committee to:

1. Re-commission the Tax Policy Study of 2002 (Doug Drake) and to include a look at the General Fund and transfers to the School Aid Fund.
2. Oppose HB 1013, which would allow the State Superintendent to close buildings that don’t make AYP
3. Oppose SB 842 that requires that all central office administrators must get early literacy intervention training.
4. Support HB 4593, which would extend the time allowable for post retirement employment from 6 to 10 years.

1. Pat Reeves led a team of facilitators to conduct spirited roundtable discussions regarding topics and format for future substantive conversations around issues of importance for member districts. Council members split into four groups to discuss a tentative plan for dialogue that will:
1. Help chart the course for the future of Michigan ’s K-12 public school system.
2. Allow Council representatives to get to know one another and to better understand their issues.
3. Raise the impact of the Association on state and federal policy making.