A local blog suggested the following to ‘cut spending’:
Eliminate the double-dipping by retired school teachers for making tens of
thousands of dollars as substitute teachers, but you never step into a
classroom. It is a sweet gig, but it is time to end it. Estimated savings: $3 million over five years.
I am highly curious. How do you double dip as a retired teacher? If you are retired, then you aren’t receiving a teacher pay check. If you aren’t receiving the first pay check, then you aren’t double dipping.
Secondly, I believe that the blogger is speaking of the ROP program. Yes, retired teachers are paid for performing various professional tasks throughout the school system, one of which might be substitute teaching. There are lots of other duties that need performing. Using members of the ROP team has saved the county millions of dollars since its inception and smart jurisdictions statewide have retired teachers ROPPING, although they might not call their program by that terminology.
The ROP program is not double dipping. When you ROP, you get one check from the county. If you are hired to perform other duties, it isn’t until you have completed your contractual ROP agreement for the year.
I resent someone just making up crap to take a poke at the school system. That’s exactly what it is, making up crap for political gain. The bottom line is, it’s a lie. Does Pete Candland believe this crap and would he support it? He and that blog seem to be joined at the hip so I have no choice but to assume he wants the School Board to get rid of the ROP program. He may let me know if I have ASSuMEd something that is not true.
There were a lot of other examples of making up crap in that list but I will handle one ‘error’ at a time, as the mood strikes me. Taking a shot at teachers always irritates me. Taking a shot at retired teachers is a declaration of war.
Which blog is this, that is getting you worked up?
Three guesses. Which blogs promotes only one supervisor and tells us, ad nauseum, what POS’s the rest of them are? What blog has declared war on the school board?
Ding ding ding!!!
Rick, it is the famous Sheriff blog.
Moon, I read that and just shook my head. Wanted to say what is the difference between a retired teacher returning, and someone on Social Security or Disability working since that payment is not enough? Being invovled with Aging & Disability, I know several folks who get a job and work, staying within the limit of what they can receive as additional pay without jepordizing their SS or SSI.
I personally support the program where retired teachers come back..and he failed to note that under the ROP, the pay is lower then when salaried. And like you noted, the cost savings whereever you look in the Nation, has been beneficial.
@Ray, thanks for your input. Many of the teachers who ROP are not taking early ss. ROP stops when the teacher becomes eligible for full social security and your are right, you don’t get to offset.
Double dipping makes it sound like the teachers are getting paid twice by the county which simply is not true.
Actually, the idea of slamming at retired teachers just pisses the hell out of me. If any group of people deserve not to be politicized, it’s retired teachers.
Second dumbest statement of the week: (same source)
What in the hell is county staff there for? They aren’t mindless drones, there to please the master. Study the model for our local system of government.
I see nothing but distain expressed for the county employees. At last, the arrogance and superiority has come through loud and clear.
How sad.
Lots of military and federal employees double dip. Many become private contractors – which is FAR more lucrative. So I’d say there’s some hypocrisy there…. We only value those that make money in this country. Teachers who shape the future – trivial stuff. Those people over there aren’t worthy of our attention.
That blog and its ilk are not interested in the community. It’s a place to vent anger…all kinds of anger. Probably those that mourn the loss of Tele-marketing calls – when you could really yell at live people. They make broad brush comments and generalizations with few or no facts and pick on people that can’t fight back. Aren’t most bullies really just chicken?
I hear you, Lyssa.
Of all the people to pick on…retired teachers. I want to know if Pete Candland agrees with the speaker since I can’t tell the difference in what he says and what is said on that blog. Does Pete Candland believe the teachers are double dipping and will he try to strong arm the school board into doing away with the ROP program?
Let’s hear the answer to that one. I also want to know what ‘double dipping’ means in this context. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!
I will assume Candland supports doing away with ROP.
Teachers! You double dippers! Stop doing that!!!!!!
What is wrong with hiring back retired employees? They bring all kinds of experience back to the job that can’t be gotten any other way. I think the SoN is envious that he has not had the opportunity.
The whole concept of so called “double dipping” is just plain DUMB. Does the person who from private enterprise, draws a retirement and then goes to work in another place, “double dipping”? Is the person who draws Social Security and a retirement from a previous private enterprise job, “double dipping” Of if that person then takes another job, is that “triple dipping’? Or what about the Federal/State/County/City employee who retires; drawing a retirement and then goes to work for (pick a job) “double dipping’? What if they draw Social Social Security based not their government job? Are they “double dipping”? This g=could go on “ad infinitum, ad nauseum”.
The Federal Government does something similar except they bring you back as a consultant under a blanket services contract. Did that for one year after I retired from my federal job, not after I retired from the military. But at the time I worked for the Fed, I gave up a healthy portion of my retirement because I was a commissioned officer. That rule changed shortly after I left my Fed job. Damn!
George, think you for your sensible contribution. I have read some real crappy remarks about retired teachers. It sounds to me like one of the contributors was right, blog contributors might need to get some friends with more integrity who don’t try to work and cheat the system.
The people I know who ROPPED worked like dogs, grading state mandated portfolios, making professional calls about employment, investigative calls, upkeep of student records, administering state tests, subbing, preparation of curriculum materials, mentoring new teachers, etc. There was not slacking off.
Actually, I think this is like most things I have read on that blog…an extremely limited knowledge base of most things attacked. The contributors know even less. Alexander Pope said it best regarding a little knowledge.
I think it’s efficient. Plus you get out of paying for healthcare for an employee. I would think that would make him happy to have one less person receiving benefits.
Right. No benefits at all. Its just like being a private contractor.
“Double Dip” is an intentionally pejorative phrase. It only would apply if someone gets paid twice for doing the same job. If I do one job for an employer and then do another for the same employer, that’s not double dipping.
I guess Greg L has found a rival for intentional blog arson in an environment overrun with the dry tinder of uninformed and easily spooked readers.
H/T to Scout. Well said.
I can’t believe the other new low, attacking retired teachers and the ROP program. In the first place, ROP programs are everywhere because jurisdictions found that they are way ahead of the game moneywise bringing in retired folks. They don’t have to pay pension or health care for these people. School systems get people with professional skills. Lots of band for the buck.
Only an abysmally ignorant person would chose to attack retired teachers or the ROP program.
As for the people quoted who don’t do much for lots of money…HA! They are either lying or people who lack the integrity to do the work they were tasked with doing. No one made them do it. ROP is voluntary.
If I found myself in that position I would call the Benefits Office and ask to be reassigned to something where I earned my paycheck instead of taking the paycheck and then bitching about it, trying to ruin things for all the ROPPERs who bust their asses, doing the best job they can.
I still want to know what Pete thinks of the ROP program. Is this something else he has been given bad advice and lies on?
If the Sheriff is against retired teachers, does that mean Pete is also? It sure sounds like it if the pattern continues.
This article from the Washington Post couldn’t have come at a better time:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/22/you-think-you-know-what-teachers-do-right-wrong/?tid=pm_pop
Just because you went to school doesn’t mean you know how to teach.
Thank goodness I found this blog where people appear to be not typing in their underwear.
I suppose the Underwear Blog is going to try to destroy something else in the county.
Now they are attacking the little bit of extra money retired teachers can make. It’s a very popular program and isn’t just menial work. Strange what some people call menial work. I guess if they aren’t doing it then it’s menial.
Schools need a lot of things done. I know of teachers who just read to little children as their ROP work. Menial? Probably. An 8 year old could do it. Priceless to a child however, who needed the attention of an adult that day.
@Moon-howler
Great article. It will be interesting to see if Pete brings ROP up in a future BOCS meeting. If so, then we will know that he is actually a dummy for the ventriloquist SoN.
George, I see where you and your ilk are being discussed. Just to let you know, I am proud to be your ilk.
Expect the entire list to be put forward by the supervisor.
If history repeats itself, that will surely happen. Should I expect to see it in a binder on Tuesday?
“ilk”. Such an odd word. It’s archaic, and not in its origins particularly negative, I wouldn’t think. But it’s a great favorite of bloggers to use as a collective term of disparagement. I wonder why. It must be that it lumps people together, thus making it easier to create a negative stereotype and that it sounds kind of yukkie.
Doesn’t it though? I didn’t feel like George or his cohorts were being flattered, that’s for sure.
I stand with George as one of his ilk.
Yogi Berra must have been farsighted and had PWC in mind when he said, “It’s like deja vu all over again.” First Corey, with the help of a local muckraker, rode to office with his divisive campaign centered around immigration. Now his evil twin, with the help of another blogging muckraker, hopes to ride the tide of discontent (fueled by perhaps a dozen, if that, whiny, penny-pinching malcontents) to Chairmanship. The rest of the Board is looking better, saner, more adult all the time.
@Censored bybvbl
I think most of our supervisors just use common sense and no hidden or unhidden agendas. Those ideas seems to sustain them.
I think maybe Corey is at that stage in his political career also, at least I hope he is.