Gary North

These people worked for one day. They are getting over $250/month for the rest of their lives.

As an example, the report shows an unnamed employee who previously worked for another school district paid a $250 fee to work on June 18, 2002 in Kilgore ISD. The employee was paid $41.20 in wages, from which $2.55 in Social Security taxes were withheld. The employee has since reached age 62 and is receiving spousal benefits of $288.80 per month - even though the employee's pension from the Teacher Retirement System of Texas already pays $2,177.50 monthly.

Nice work if you can get it!

This is from the Tyler Morning Telegraph (January 29, 2007).

One day's work as a janitor for select school districts in Texas - including Lindale and Kilgore - won federal retirement benefits for thousands of teachers from throughout the state, and proved to be a cash source for the districts hosting the "clean-for-a-day" crews.

More than 19,000 of those one-day employees could receive $2.2 billion in Social Security benefits "to which they may not be entitled," according to a federal report released Jan. 8. One government watchdog group termed the practice "legal but creepy."

The districts charged fees to teachers for a one-day work program that earned employees the extra government benefits, then spent much of the fee money on projects such as parking lots, a nurse's station, auditorium improvements, a distance-learning center, and a school board conference room.

At least five districts, including Lindale, didn't have authorization to operate the programs, the report said.

The districts allowed retiring teachers from around the state to work, often as janitors, for a single day. The one-day work programs allowed the teachers to qualify for both state and federal retirement benefits.

Joe Fried of the watchdog group, Public Program Testing Organization, said Congress never intended to allow such "double-dipping." Indeed, Congress changed federal law in 2004 to end the practice.

It remains unclear whether retirees who participated in the one-day work programs - including 7,715 who worked for a single day in Lindale and Kilgore school districts - will lose any benefits as a result of the findings.

The report, published by the federal office that audits the Social Security Administration, found that school districts used the one-day program mainly to generate revenue. Fried said that hundreds of workers showing up for one day at a school campus could not possibly have served a legitimate employment purpose. . . .

As an example, the report shows an unnamed employee who previously worked for another school district paid a $250 fee to work on June 18, 2002 in Kilgore ISD. The employee was paid $41.20 in wages, from which $2.55 in Social Security taxes were withheld. The employee has since reached age 62 and is receiving spousal benefits of $288.80 per month - even though the employee's pension from the Teacher Retirement System of Texas already pays $2,177.50 monthly.

HOG WILD

The report looked at seven of the 15 districts in Texas that were alleged to operate one-day worker programs from 2001-04, then extrapolated the results. Inspectors estimate 19,212 people will receive $110 million in extra benefits annually, for a potential $2.2 billion over their lifetimes. . . .

Generally, federal law doesn't allow employees on a government pension to also earn Social Security, except when they work a second job that does qualify. But all that was required for proof of that second job was a pay stub from at least one day of work.

"Everyone went hog-wild crazy for this," Fried said. "They pushed too hard on a good thing."

When Congress tightened this loophole in 2004, it required employment for at least five years in the job that qualifies for Social Security. The U.S. General Accounting Office had said in a February 2003 report that studies had focused mainly on Texas and Georgia, and the extent of one-day worker programs nationwide was unknown. But it said the programs could be possible in about 2,300 state and local government retirement plans in other states. . . .