cross postie from 3 point shooter about beating 'city hall'

the hoosier is a retired teacher from indiana who had an admin that was
trying to screw him and his fellow teachers on their retirement plan.
he handed them their hats. you can beat city hall.

best,

rono

Posted by Three Point Shooter on January 18, 2006 at 09:59:41:

Thanks to all for your support on the situation I have described below
in posts about the "buyout" contract at our school. As I have
mentioned, I am in the process of getting the $ away from the insurance
company who oversaw the buyout at our schoo here in Indiana. I am doing
an IRA rollover to Fidelity and will be glad to avoid the higher fund
fees as well as 12B-1 fees.

And, for those of you that have expressed concern for me, believe me, I
am doing fine! I am playing plenty of tennis with my son (he was on an
undefeated junior high team!) and fishing all I want to: mostly Lake
Erie and Ontario.

On this post, though, I am going to say just a little more than I have
already told you:
1) The insurance company who oversaw this buyout (at this time I will
not name them) oversaw over 100 buyouts of school corporations in
Indiana the same year my district went through our "buyout". As I said,
these were buyouts of severance type benefits: a) accumulated sick days
and b) future health insurance. This company is currently doing more
byouts in our state this year.

2) It is important to realize, that the insurance company involved has
a partnership with the Indiana State Teachers Assoc.(ISTA, the state
teachers union). Many of their business cards say: "name of insurance
company"/ISTA Financial. This insurance company even has an office in
the ISTA building in downtown Indianapolis. Remember: The ISTA is
supposed to defend teachers.

3)The insurance company is making a ton of $ on these "buyouts" as all
the $ is being placed into 401A annuities and VEBA's (501A healthcare
accounts). 12B-1 fees are charged. Mutual fund fees are charged.
"Turnover" fees are charged: this is where the insurance company,
oversees redistributing $ from unvested teachers (when they quit)back
into the accounts of teachers who are actively still working.

4) As I said in earlier posts, the insurance/ISTA agent overseeing the
buyout at our school, got on our stage, in front of over 100 teachers,
just several days before the teachers voted "yes" to accept the
contract. He told us the agreed upon terms of our buyout contract. And,
let me say this: HE TOLD THE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH. But, our
superintendent, who video-taped this buyout session, did 2 things: a)
ignored some important, promised terms of the contract when the
business mgr. accidentally left those terms out(even though they had
been agreed upon and were on video) and b) tried to change other agreed
upon terms that were both in the contract and on video.

5) Once I started telling the state teachers union (ISTA), the local
teachers' union, the insurance agent who had been on our stage, making
all the promises of terms, that the superintendent was not honoring a
bunch of those terms, they all chose to do: NOTHING. I contacted school
board members, other administrators in our corporation, tried to get
help from teachers, called and e-mailed the ISTA. I got no help. In
fact, teachers forwarded me several e-mails. An example of one would
be: a) The ISTA has told the local teachers' union NOT to file a
grievance....not to defend the teachers. b) The ISTA has told the local
teachers union NOT to talk to me....I didn't really care about (b), but
part (a) is a joke. Wasn't anyone going to be responsible for all the
promises of terms that had been made? I knew hundreds of thousands of
dollars were at stake. It became my responsibility to "take on" the
school corporation.

6)I gave up on the teachers and their state union (ISTA) and the local
union as well as the honesty of our school corporation. I went for help
and recruited a fellow teacher who was a union membger and I knew was
tough. It took over 2 months to teach him what was going on, but once
he "got it", he really "got it". He was able to put the heat on the
local and state union (ISTA) to FINALLY, after 5 months of me yelling
bloody murder, get a grievance filed! After 2 more months, the local
union finally won the grievance. Unbelieveable that all the terms of
the contract were on video tape and it took 7 months for the mess to
get settled. Think this superinendent had full control of his board?
Even today, the $400,000 that was announced as an "error" to over 100
teaches has been accepted as an "honest error". It wasn't honest and it
was not an error. When you do simple stuff (and I don't have a clue as
to why the teachers can't understand this stuff!) like change the date
upon which sick days were to be "frozen" from what the ocntract says,
that seems an awful lot like "theft" to me! Just that one little
"stunt" cheated me out of 12 sick days; my sick days were worth $151.
You do the math. We have over 220 teachers in our corporation. You get
the idea. The $400,000 did not "come out of the air", as evidently, the
superintendent has been able to make people believe. There were other
"stunts" attempted and halted by the grievance. There were a couple of
succuessful "stunts" as well.

7) With all the $ the insurance company is making, it wouldn't have
hurt the "insurance company"/ISTA to file the grievance IMMEDIATELY,
the 1st time I told them. They have a partnership with the union! This
insurance company, even though they were on our stage, making all the
promises, has let me know that they are taking no responsiblity in any
of this and that:"They only provide the savings vehicles". They have
admitted to me that they don't allow their agent to get up on the stage
in front of teachers anymore and tell the teachers the terms of their
buyout contract. Of course they don't! There's liability involved! The
ISTA and this insurance company thought, if they could just brush me
under the carpet, the whole problem would go away. because: I GUESS I'M
THE ONLY TEACHER WHO TOOK NOTES AT THE BUYOUT SESSION AND REALIZED WHAT
THE SUPERINTENDENT WAS ATTEMPTING. I thought teachers took notes! I
thought teachers were smart and had college degrees.

8) I have mentioned VERY little as to how I was treated. That is a
story in itself. I will just say, in regards to "whistle-blowing",
everyone thinks they must take a side, EVEN IF THEY UNDERSTAND NOTHING.
Yes, I had many teaches who were thankful for what I had done for them,
but you would not believe (I guess due to jealous) how some teachers,
even though I went to bat for them, retaliated.

9) Yes, I resnet having to "take on" a school corporation as an
individual.

10) Trying to get AN government entity to look at this situation has
been VERY tough. Finally, the State Board of Accounts, to my knowledge
is STILL looking at this mess. I spent over 2 hours with them last
summer and turned stuff over to them, like the video and the e-mail the
superintendent sent me the day he knew he was "caught", the day he
realized I had a copy of the video. On that day, he said the video was
not true! Gosh, that video is all the teachers were EVER told right
before they voted!

11) There is something going on with the media (newspapers) on all
this. I have shown all the documents, the videos, etc. to them, and
they are hesitant to say anything about it. The only reason I would
like to see this covered is that: I DON'T EVER WANT TO SEE THIS HAPPEN
TO ANY OTHER UNSUSPECTING, HARDWORKING (but clueless) TEACHERS. The are
SO vulnerable to this type of stuff! Remember, $400,000 was eventually
won, $13,000 of it mine. My "buoput" total was just over $80,000. The
superintendent, tried to give me as lttle as $68,000. Administrators
that try to steal from innocent teachers HAPPEN, but I saw VERY, VERY
little effort here to stop him, other than the effort by me and the
teacher I taught.

I have seen below where folks want me to list the school corporation as
well as the insurance company. That may be coming. As I said, I could
write a book. I am "blown away", with all my hard evidence, by the
media's effort here to protect the thieves from letting folks know what
was attempted. I thought the media would jump on this story with both
feet. Gosh, last spring, when a clerk in our school was found to be
missing less than $15,000 in an account, it was H-U-G-E in the
Indianapolis Star. This is $400,000! And, the teachers who accumulated
the most sick days, the REALLY dedicated teachers, were the ones whom
stood to have the most $ stolen from them. Yes, I said "STOLEN". These
"stunts" that were attempted were not honest!

That's enough for today! I know these buyouts are not just going on in
education, but everywhere.....maybe all this will help someone.

Sincerely,
Three Point Shooter







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