Novato school district employees take early retirement deals
More than 40 employees of the Novato Unified School District have accepted incentives to retire early, allowing some other COVID-era employees who were provisionally let go in March to fill vacancies for 2024-25.
The district worked with Public Agency Retirement Services to offer packages to 43 senior-level employees. The workers include 16 teachers and other certificated non-management employees, one certificated management person, one confidential employee and 25 classified non-management workers.
They will leave the district in June.
Joshua Braff, the district’s chief financial officer, said there will be some “modest” cost savings over time, “but that was not the main reason for offering the PARS retirement program.”
“We had quite a few temporary positions that were ended this year due to the ending of Covid-era funding,” Braff said in an email. “We wanted to ensure we could keep the amazing staff members that held those positions and this was a way for us to keep morale high and retain the qualified and valued staff members that we could have potentially lost.”
The district board unanimously approved the agreement for the program at its April 23 meeting.
“We are extremely fortunate to have had this PARS retirement opportunity to honor staff who have served our NUSD community for many years,” said Tracy Smith, the district superintendent. “In addition, we have the bonus of being able to retain as many staff as possible, despite the staffing reductions necessary due to expiring funds.”
Braff said the program offered 70% of the eligible employees’ final year’s earnings, paid out as an annuity. He said he did not have the details on how that compared to each person’s likely full retirement pension benefits.
“That is different for each staff member, and is between each staff member and their retirement program, CalPERS or CalSTRS,” Braff said, referring to the California Public Employees Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System.
“While we will have some vacancies, we found the program to be a huge success that is achieving the goals we set out to achieve when first offering the program in February,” Braff said.
A staff report for the April 23 board meeting said that “while the program does have a cost each year for five years, there is an anticipated savings associated with passing this item that exceeds the cost.”
“We do not have final numbers for the cost yet, as it is based on 70% of each individuals final salaries,” Braff said in an email. “Our estimation is that we will be saving around $400,000 in five years after paying the fees for this service.”
This is the first time the Novato Unified School District has used PARS, according to Braff. At least one other Marin school district, the Tamalpais Union High School District, used PARS in 2018 to offer similar incentives.
The Larkspur-Corte Madera School District offered workers an early retirement incentive program in 2019.