Pa. school employees' retirement board voids special election ballots
The Pennsylvania School Employees' Retirement System has voided ballots in a special election for a seat on its controlling board, citing "minor irregularities."
The Pennsylvania School Employees' Retirement System has voided ballots in a special election for a seat on its controlling board, citing "minor irregularities."
Since PSERS is one of the biggest expenses that Pennsylvanians pay - it consumed $2.6 billion from state and local taxpayers last year, and expects to need $4 billion next year - it's comforting that the board's 15 members, who hire the hundreds of private investors paid to manage PSERS' $52 billion in assets, answer to the people.
Or at least to politicians. The General Assembly names four members, the governor three. The state treasurer and the boss of the School Boards Association get seats. School workers elect four. Retirees, one. Plus there's a rep voted in by members of the state's 500 elected school boards, who face those angry voters complaining their property taxes rise so administrators, teachers, and support staff can retire at nearly their old salaries.
The boards' PSERS rep used to be Larry Breech, a soybean farmer and substitute teacher, who says he "spent a thousand hours a year on PSERS business," collecting less than $1,500 a year in meeting stipends. Praising PSERS's "expert" staff, he blamed recent funding increases on "conservative Republican legislators" and Democrats who boosted their own pensions but underfunded state payments to PSERS in the early 2000s. He says PSERS would be more profitable if it fired more high-priced private managers and used its staff more.
But Breech was voted off the Millville school board last summer, losing his PSERS eligibility. He's now running for state Senate in Columbia County as an independent.
So PSERS announced a special election for the school board seat, accepted 12 self-nominations, and mailed thousands of ballots on April 4.
A week later, PSERS voided the vote. Executive director Glen Grell, a former state rep who more than doubled his state salary when colleagues and board members hired him last year, blamed "minor irregularities" in the process.
What happened? Some candidates objected because PSERS cut their self-descriptions below the 100-word guideline while leaving rivals' descriptors intact and over the limit.
Others "raised questions about the 'no campaigning' admonition" in vote guidelines, Grell told candidates. In fact, they may campaign, just not in the official mailing.
So new ballots are going out. Here's who's running, and their school district: Edward J. Cardow, union steamfitter, Chichester; Michael E. Hartline, self-employed, Centennial; Judith K. Quigley, retired landscape architect, Mechanicsburg.
Christian Schwartz, owner of Stoney Hill Electric, Pennsbury; James Holley, engineer, Southern York; Daniel Cushing, chief scientific officer, Nuron Biotech, Phoenixville Area board president.
Paul Stepanoff, director of environmental services at Boucher & James, Quakertown board president; Eric O. DiTullio, contracts estimator, Seneca Valley; Carl H. Ziegler, retired engineer, Kutztown.
Donna R. Gavitt, ex-teacher, self-employed, East Lycoming; Virginia Lastner, retired investment banker, Tredyffrin/Easttown; Raeann Hofkin, director of payroll at TridentUSA Health, Upper Perkiomen.
That, plus past employers, church, and family affiliations, is about all voters are told. It's like voting for judges: Is this one part of my tribe?
At least two candidates, Stepanoff of Quakertown and Hofkin of Upper Perk, have been outspoken in challenging the PSERS status quo. As I wrote last summer, each authored resolutions to stop their local boards from paying PSERS increases under certain circumstances. You wouldn't know that from the ballot.
Of course, the pensions are creatures of state law. Even an insurgent board can't do much.
But this process doesn't help even well-informed school board members know who they're putting in charge.
215-854-5194@PhillyJoeD