Charles City School District advances standard policy for early retirements

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

For years, when the Charles City School District would have budget concerns toward the end of the school year it would look to teacher early retirement incentives to save money in the future.

“Most school districts get into a budget crunch and they just, boom, here’s the early retirement policy, take it or leave it, and it’s really short notice,” Superintendent Mike Fisher told the district Board of Education at its meeting Monday, while explaining a plan for something he called a “win-win” for everyone involved.

“When we have a tenured teacher who retires, we always hire with somebody who’s going to be cheaper because of the salary scale, years of service, those types of things,” Fisher said.

For example, he said, the more experienced teacher may be making $70,000 or $75,000, and be replaced with someone hired for $45,000.
“So there’s cost savings every time we have that turnaround,” Fisher said.

The problem with coming up with a new retirement incentive plan every time there’s a budget concern is it provides the employees affected very short notice, and employees who are nearing retirement age don’t know if there will be an offer or not in any given year.

“And you might see a bunch of really tenured employees leave at the same time, which is hard on the district,” Fisher said. “It might be good financially, but we lose a lot of great years of service coming out and it’s hard to replace that many people that quickly.”

Fisher presented an early retirement policy which he said was put together with help from district Business Manager Terri O’Brien and members of the teacher negotiation group.

“It was just a thoughtful, collaborative conversation,” Fisher said. “It’s a win-win for our employees and I would argue it’s a win-win for our taxpayers as well. It’s a cost-saving strategy for our school district, and it also spreads this cost out over time instead of one big lump sum.”

The Board of Education passed the first reading of the new policy on Monday.

Under the policy, employees – including teachers, senior leadership team members, administrators and directors – must be at least 55 years old by Aug. 31 of the school year in which they wish to retire, and have a total of at least 10 years of service in the school district.
It offers greater financial incentives for employees who provide early notice of their intention to retire.

Employees who give notice of their retirement by Feb. 1 a year in advance of their retirement are eligible for a payment of 50% of their last year’s salary, capped at a maximum of $50,000.

Employees who give notice of their retirement by Feb. 1 of the year they will retire are eligible for 25% of their salary.
All early retirements must be approved by the board of education.

Fisher said there are huge advantages to the district to get notice of retirements more than a year in advance.

“My gosh, we have so much more flexibility in recruiting, attracting and finding new staff members,” he said. “People can be more thoughtful and plan out what their strategies are for retirement. It’s a big deal. It takes the anxiety away from employees.

“And it also allows us to be more fiscally responsible with taxpayer money in spreading out the cost over time and being able to plan for it,” he said.

In other action at Monday’s meeting, the board:

• Heard a report on COVID-19 plans from Fisher. He said the district’s reopening “Return to Learn” plan for the next school year is due to the state Board of Education by July 1, and the district will make extra efforts to get information to families.

“We have guidelines from the state and CDC, from Floyd County Public Health, and we eventually will synthesize those into our own guidelines that we will be using for schools,” he said. “Two of the guiding principles are ‘if-then’ statements — if this happens, what would we do, and I know there’s a lot of anxiety with that, and so we want to be prepared as much as possible.”

• Heard from Fisher that plans for a community grand opening celebration of the new baseball and softball diamonds at the high school will be delayed until next year because of COVID-19 concerns and the likelihood of drawing a huge crowd.

“We will do smaller celebrations this year, but do the big whole thing next year,” he said.

The first games in the new facilities are set for Monday, June 15, with softball versus Decorah at 5:30 p.m. and a double header baseball game versus New Hampton beginning at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, June 16.

• Approved a fee schedule for the 2020-21 school year with no changes in fees or meal prices, except for a $2 increase in the senior graduation fee. There is a $5 decrease in the cost of a yearbook.

“It’s important to note to the public that there have been almost no increases,” said board member Scott Dight.

• Approved a new vision statement for the school district: “Creating compassionate competent problem solvers.”

• Heard a presentation on mindfulness course work by Tia McInroy.

• Decided to have only one board meeting in July, on July 20.

• Approved the appointment of Tony Slinger and Doug Bohlen as volunteer baseball coaches and Jeremy Heyer and Samantha Heyer as volunteer softball coaches.

• Approved Brandy Anderson, Sarah Blickenderfer, Megan Vanderloop and Julie Molstead as grade 5-12 summer school supervisors.

• Approved coach stipends of $7,500 each for TLC instruction coaches Kellie Boggess, Sheila Etherington, Eric Johanningmeier and David Voves; $7,500 for TLC success coach Marie Conklin; and an additional $3,750 for Voves as TLC coordinator.