Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

Auditors: More miscues managing CT teachers’ retirement system

  • Education
  • by Keith M. Phaneuf
  • September 12, 2014
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

The state agency that oversees benefits for 32,000 retired Connecticut teachers and their beneficiaries came under fire again Thursday from the state auditors.

While Auditors Robert M. Ward and John C. Geragosian expanded concerns they raised earlier about the Teachers’ Retirement Board’s struggles to deliver benefits, they also criticized the TRB for failing to:

  • Reclaim benefits in dozens of cases where money was paid out improperly to the deceased.
  • Keep track of $50 million owed to a retirement health care program throughout most of 2012 and 2013.

“The lack of internal controls and accounting procedures is shocking,” Ward told The Mirror. “For an agency that is responsible for $14 billion in assets and over $1.6 billion in receipts and in expenditures, to have the deficiencies they have is really shocking.”

The auditors had sent a letter to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in late May complaining about the TRB’s chronic failure to collect adequate contact information about beneficiaries. Retired teachers can designate a spouse or other individual to receive their benefits, under certain conditions, after the retiree’s death.

In one instance, the board had not even attempted to search for five years for a beneficiary owed $192,000, the auditors noted in the letter to Malloy.

More than $1.5 billion in total was paid out last year to more than 32,000 retired teachers or their beneficiaries.

TRB Executive Director Darlene Perez responded to the governor on June 6, writing that – despite the one big miss – her agency had failed to deliver teacher pension funds over the past decade in just 15 of more than 7,800 cases involving deaths – a failure rate of less than one-fifth of 1 percent. Those pending cases represent about $1.2 million in undelivered benefits.

A bigger problem

But the auditors’ latest report suggests the scope of the problem was larger.

State Auditors Robert Ward and John Geragosian.

State Auditors Robert Ward and John Geragosian.

The new audit reports that “as of April 2014, there were a total of 83 deceased retiree member cases under review in the (TRB’s) benefits division in which the board owed money to beneficiaries. Our review of 11 of these cases disclosed a total of $520,203 in unrecorded liabilities.”

Perez said Thursday that most of these additional cases cropped up after the auditors began reviewing her agency, and that the numbers she reported to Malloy covered a decade before the audit period, which began last spring.

Perez told the Mirror back in late May that her agency’s resources, “are at an extreme low,” and the agency is particularly in need of updated software – concerns she reaffirmed on Thursday.

The Teachers’ Retirement Board is one of the smallest agencies, both in terms of funding and staffing, in state government.

Though this year’s board budget technically is just over $1 billion, most of those funds involve benefits for members. The agency has an operations budget of just under $2.3 million with 27 full-time positions, 21 of which currently are filled.

A second concern raised in the latest audit involves 51 cases that the board had under review, as of April 2014, involving $434,709 in benefits improperly paid out after retirees’ deaths.

In 47 of the 51 cases, the auditors wrote, no collection effort had been made in the prior 10 months.

The TRB wrote in its formal response to the auditors that “the identification of a decedent is a difficult issue for pension systems.”

Some families report deaths to the board, which also receives notifications in some cases from the federal government. The TRB also employs a death identification service provider.

Still, “efforts are underway to reorganize the function within the accounting division,” the agency wrote.

$53 million due

The final major concern raised by the auditors involves the premium retired teachers pay for their health care – a fee that is deducted from their regular pension payments.

The board, in turn, must deposit those premiums into the retiree health fund.

But Ward and Geragosian wrote that those premiums were not transferred into the retiree health fund from February 2012 “until the (TRB) was notified by our staff in November 2013.”

At one point, more than $53 million was due to the health fund, the auditors wrote.

Eventually the matter was reconciled and the full amount was transferred out of the pension program and into the health fund.

But state legislators and the governor build the state budget – including contributions for both components of the teachers’ retirement benefits system – based on the balances reported by the TRB.

The board is in violation of state accounting manual requirements “as well as those of reasonable business practice regarding the proper identification and recording” of funds owed to system, the auditors wrote.

Perez said Thursday that her agency had kept track of the health-care premiums on an internal system, but failed to record the funds properly on the central statewide accounting network.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Keith M. Phaneuf A winner of numerous journalism awards, Keith Phaneuf has been CT Mirror’s state finances reporter since it launched in 2010. The former State Capitol bureau chief for The Journal Inquirer of Manchester, Keith has spent most of 31 years as a reporter specializing in state government finances, analyzing such topics as income tax equity, waste in government and the complex funding systems behind Connecticut’s transportation and social services networks. A former contributing writer to The New York Times, Keith is a graduate of and a former journalism instructor at the University of Connecticut.

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
1,500 Hartford school staff to be vaccinated this week at pop-up clinic
by Adria Watson

Vaccinations are taking place Thursday and Friday. A second round will be scheduled in coming days.

With billions in federal relief on the way to CT, legislators assert their role in deciding how to spend it
by Keith M. Phaneuf and Mark Pazniokas

With an unusual bill, state legislators are reminding Gov. Ned Lamont they have significant role in disbursing federal coronavirus relief.

As the push to reopen schools intensifies, Miguel Cardona and first lady Jill Biden travel to Meriden to show how this town did it
by Jacqueline Rabe Thomas and Adria Watson

Cardona said getting the nation's schools reopened is priority No. 1.

CT hasn’t started collecting new payroll tax from state workers
by Keith M. Phaneuf

Connecticut established a new payroll tax surcharge on Jan. 1 but still isn't deducting it from state workers' paychecks.

Lamont’s budget offers another round of tax amnesty
by Keith M. Phaneuf

Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposal waives penalties and caps interest at 3% over each of the next two fiscal years.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion The public health bill no one is talking about, but should be
by Brian Festa

On February 16,  the legislature's Public Health Committee conducted a public hearing on two bills, S.B. 568 and H.B. 6423, both of which would eliminate the religious exemption to mandatory vaccinations for Connecticut schoolchildren.  The hearing was capped at 24 hours, depriving nearly 1,500 members of the public who had registered for the hearing their opportunity to be heard.  The vast majority of those who did testify, and who submitted written testimony, opposed the bill.  The committee is expected to vote on the bill as early as  today. 

Opinion Students need more resources, fewer officers
by Tenille Bonilla

"School resource officer" is just a nice way to say cop. But what students really need is more resource and less officer.

Opinion The Board of Regents’ changes must not shortchange its students or faculty
by Carrie Andreoletti, PhD

As a university professor and a lifespan developmental psychologist, I tend to approach my work from a developmental perspective. This means I aim to foster a lifelong love of learning and to help others find a sense of meaning and purpose, as well as confidence in their ability to reach their goals. My approach to higher education is shaped by my desire to provide the best possible education for my students. This is why the recent Board of Regents’ proposed changes at the four state universities have me worried.

Opinion How to close schooling opportunity gaps created by the pandemic
by Carol Gale

We ask school district leaders to trust your public servants whose daily work life involves assessing student needs and planning or modifying instruction to meet those needs. Listen to their voices, as we have, and allocate precious resources on interventions that will offer increased opportunities for Hartford students to succeed.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO