Pa. among 20 states to offer lobbyists pensions

AS A LOBBYIST in New York's statehouse, Stephen Acquario is doing pretty well. He pulls down $204,000 a year, more than the governor makes, gets a Ford Explorer as his company car and is afforded another special perk:

Even though he's not a government employee, he is entitled to a full state pension.

He's among hundreds of lobbyists in at least 20 states who get public pensions because they represent associations of counties, cities and school boards, an Associated Press review found. Legislatures granted them access decades ago on the premise that they serve governments and the public. In many cases, such access also includes state health care benefits.

But several states have started to question whether these organizations should qualify for such benefits, since they are private entities in most respects: They face no public oversight of their activities, can pay their top executives private-sector salaries and sometimes lobby for positions in conflict with taxpayers.

That scrutiny has fallen upon the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. While many workers covered by the state's major public pension systems are not state employees, the School Boards Association staff is unique among them.

The association represents the state's 500 local school boards and, among other things, advocates on their behalf in Harrisburg. It is the only such interest group whose employees qualify for public pensions.

That is based on the authority of a decades-old legal opinion by the state attorney general's office that says the association is "an extension of local school districts and funded by them to provide information, training, publications, services and advocacy on their behalf."

The opinion was issued "when PSBA hired its first full-time staff person" in the 1930s, said association spokesman Steve Robinson. Staff members' salaries, benefits and employer's share of pension costs come mostly from local tax revenue paid by school districts in dues or for association services such as writing school policies or recruiting superintendents.

Seventy-two PSBA staff members were enrolled in the Pennsylvania School Employees' Retirement System as of June 2012, out of more than 270,000 active members.

Elected school board members do not qualify for state pensions unless they are separately employed by a school district, said Jeff Clay, PSERS executive director.

Employees of private companies that operate charter schools are eligible for PSERS because the schools are public by law, Clay said. All charters are required to offer pension programs and, unless they make alternate arrangements, their employees are enrolled in PSERS.

Pennsylvania's other public pension fund, the State Employees' Retirement System, includes more than 6,000 employees of Penn State University, which receives an annual state appropriation but is independently operated.

The state retirement code specifies that Penn State employees are state workers for the purpose of pensions.