“Throw one scoop away, you greedy, unethical bastard!”
Over at Trust Across America, Barbara Kimmel has painted a scarlet “U” on the interim superintendent of the Mahwah School District, who has a $167,000 contract as well as an $131,000 annual pension. She finds the woman’s justification for her extravagant enrichment at taxpayer expense through the practice of “double-dipping,” unethical, and is rankled by the woman’s justification, when she says, “I think it’s the way the system is set up. Greater people than me made that decision, I took advantage of it. ” This is the epitome of unethical reasoning, Kimmel writes:
“As the Commander in Chief of a school district you are responsible for the “culture of the corporation.” Just remember what you said the next time a student shows up in your office and uses the excuse that “everyone else was doing it,” or when one of your faculty members chooses to use all their days off, leaving a classroom full of kids with no teacher. After all, it’s the way the system is set up. And the NJ taxpayers- apparently they don’t factor in to your ethical barometer at all. You just “took advantage of it (them).”
The executive director of Trust Across America also finds this to be the perfect example of conduct that is legal but not ethical. Is it? I’m dubious, and I’m not comfortable condemning the interim superintendent’s conduct or even her words, though she could have stated her situation a bit less smugly.
Exactly what is unethical here? Is it…
- Retired superintendents serving as interim superintendents?
- Retired superintendents being paid when they do so?
- Retired superintendents receiving such large pensions?
- Interim superintendents receiving such large salaries?
Is it unethical for a worker to accept the salary she is offered for her services? Is it unethical to collect the pension that your employment terms entitled you to receive? What exactly is the exemplary ethical conduct being called for here? Is Kimmel saying that the superintendent shouldn’t work after retirement? Why, if her services and experience is needed? Or is the argument that she should voluntarily waive a salary when she works? Really? Or perhaps she should stop collecting her pension voluntarily. Have you ever tried sending money back to the government? Do you really have faith that once you stop a payment stream, it will easily restart the minute you give the go-ahead?
Yes, the educational pension system is corrupt and loots public treasuries, and to the extent that the interim superintendents were part of the public union efforts to create such a profligate system, they share accountability—as does the public for electing complicit public officials. However, the argument that anyone is ethically obligated to reject compensation, negotiated payments, tax benefits or entitlements that were legally passed through transparent processes and intentionally designed to benefit them and people like them does not enthrall me. I’m not talking about a Leroy Fick, collecting food stamps he knows are meant for the poor after he wins millions in a lottery. The superintendent retired, and is getting the retirement benefits she was promised and earned. The superintendent is working, and is getting paid what her employers, foolishly, perhaps, thinks she is worth. How is she unethical? She’s not taking advantage of taxpayers; she’s not taking advantage of anyone. She works in an unethical system over which she has no control.
If everybody in a system, literally everybody, works under a set of conditions that they don’t control, then “everybody does it” is, in fact, a legitimate justification….unless the system is illegal. Then the obligation is not to participate and leave the system.
This, therefore, is a Bizarro World situation: when the entire culture is upside down, it is unfair to blame those who didn’t create the culture for being upside- down too. Barbara, before I can agree that this is a “legal but unethical” split, you’ll have to tell me what it is you think someone in the position of the interim superintendent is ethically obligated to do, other than “be in different profession.”
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Source: Trust Across America, NBC
Graphic: Northern Virginia Magazine
Ethics Alarms 
Hooray! I was never a “double dipper,” but I hired a few and the government got great benefit from their service. The term itself is a slur. They are entitled to the pension they’ve earned AND to the salary they’re earning now.
I was hoping you’d weigh in on this, Bob.
Jack- It was the misspoken smug statement that sent my trust meter into overdrive. Yes, she is “entitled” to her pay because, like you said, the educational pension system is corrupt and loots public treasuries. But entitlement and ethics are no more synonymous than legalities and ethics.
I’m going to stick to my guns here and say that the mere fact that the system allows it does not make it ethical. As the article states, there are dozens of these folks in NJ who retired early under Christie’s salary cap in order to re up as interims and double dip. And these are the same people who are charged with teaching our future leaders the difference between right and wrong.
Jack- there is no obligation to be ethical. It’s a choice.
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game?”
Double dipping no.
Being an advocate of reform while in a position that one could double dip:
Ethics Super-Hero
That is “would be”
“It was the misspoken smug statement that sent my trust meter into overdrive.” So it was her clumsy explanation that makes the conduct unethical?
You can earn a pension (particularly a public pension) when you are still in your prime earning years. Being forbidden from earning a salary from that point is unreasonable. I do not see how this situation is unethical.
“Double-dipping” is a term of contrived resentment by a class of wealth-control freaks, virtually none of whom you would ever hear pitching a hissy-fit about a “tax on a tax,” for example. Gawd! Now I probably won’t sleep because someone, somewhere thinks someone else gets paid too much. I’ve got to stop reading this stuff at hours like this!
Me too….
Funny—I was just think about how we hadn’t heard from you for a while! Glad Barbara flushed you out…
Jack, I have been missing having the time to follow your blog as closely as I would like. I continue in a period of “employment transition” that has lasted longer than I like. But honestly, from what blog-following I have been able to sustain, over the past few weeks your posts, along with many of the comments by so many followers, have been so excellent that I have felt it unnecessary to add anything, and have felt compelled to just keep quiet, read (and re-read), and let all you better, clearer thinkers say your pieces and thereby teach me. For my comment above, I feel I should apologize for it being so troll-like.
I wonder: Does “double-dipping” apply to, say, military retirees who go to work for private companies, but under military (or other government-funded) contracts? For the most part, I’m with Bob and could not improve upon what he said.
Still, a part of me – a part of me that obsesses over ethics (maybe I should call it my self-guilting angel-demon) – cringes at the thought that I am a “double taker” in the sense of “makers” and “takers.” If the government is broke or going broke, I don’t want to be part of the cause of that, and yet, as far as the federal government’s expenses are concerned, I am squarely among those whose employment cannot be dismissed from being at least part of the cause, when considering that I have lived off of federal funding for most of my life.
Is it unethical for me to work in a job that surely would not be done as well, if not for my prior experience? (I don’t think so.) Is it unethical for me to work in that same job, knowing that in my own miniscule way, I am incrementally “contributing” to the ultimate collapse of what is (mostly beyond my control) an unsustainable enterprise? That isn’t as easy to answer. I want to know the answer, but it eludes me. I get frustrated, and start ranting in facetiousness about being a “global warming embracer/celebrant” and the like…
Oh, good Lord. So retirees collecting their hard-earned pensions have to sit at home doing nothing, OR volunteer to work another job for free? My husband served in the military for 20 years and is now a police officer in the civilian world. He is collecting a federal retirement, and in a few years will be able to collect a small state retirement. This isn’t unethical, nor is it double-dipping. He is not getting anything that he didn’t rightfully earn.
Does Ms. Kimmel think that the interim position should be a volunteer job if a retiree fills the position? Good luck finding any takers.
To be fair, the reservation is not against a having a pension and having another job. The reservation was against having a pension from the very source your current job is at. More specifically having a government pensions from the very source you have a current government job.
And it is established that no, a person partaking in the system as it is established probably isn’t unethical, but the system being set up as it is, is not fiscally responsible.
I’m not sure why the source should matter, Tex. Are you saying that one shouldn’t be able to work in one’s own field if your expertise is needed after retirement? If a distinguished lifer in a police department becomes Chief, retires with a full pension, and then is hired in the same job in a neighboring community, allowing him to draw both a large salary and a large pension, and enabling him to retire THERE with a pension, giving him two pensions, is that supposed to be unethical? Is a community that is taking advantage of his experience and demonstrated skills being exploited by HIM?
Jack, I don’t disagree with a person taking a pension and having another job, even a similar job. But yes, this does show a problem in a system, when someone can retire in 20 years (which I think is bull crap for public servants *with the exception of seriously physically/mentally demanding job such as soldiers and police) when the rest of us in private sector land work much longer for likely tinier pensions…if pensions at all.
And yes, source matters in this case, if a private sector job can pull it off and still be profitable and serve their customers, by all means pay what you want.
A public sector job sourced from different entities (like your analogy): if they can make it as inexpensive on tax payers as possible, by all means, go right ahead.
In this scenario: if the community paying both the pension AND the salary can make it as inexpensive on the taxpayers as possible, by all means, go right ahead. But this person is pulling a 6 digit pension from the very same source they are drawing a 6 digit salary: the public IS being defrauded and a less expensive option for tax payers is available. Of course, as mentioned the tax payers are the buffoons who voted in this wasteful system. So this is why I don’t think it is directly unethical, but it is wasteful and if the citizens really cared, there would be uproar over corruption (of the system, not the person).
The question remains, what is the employee beneficiary to do, if his or her talents are deemed necessary? Reject the salary on principle? That won’t address the problem, which is the system itself. Why should the individual be the scapegoat, whatever the source?
Individual shouldn’t be a scapegoat.
And I hinted above that would such an individual advocate for a reformed system while in that position, they ought be considered an Ethics Super-Hero
I agree that the source does matter. The way I see it is the unethical act would be retired superintendents working as superintendents in the same or similar circumstances and collecting both the pension and salary. The intent behind a pension, as I see it, is to reward a loyal employee after he or she is no longer willing or able to perform the duties required for her job, and therefore retires. The retirement, which represents the employee’s inability or unwillingness to perform those duties, is therefore a prerequisite to receiving a pension from that employer. If the employee retires, and then returns at the same or similar position to the same employer, the retirement is essentially a lie to receive a pay increase. Deception, even if it is encouraged or ignored by the compensation system in place, is unethical. This does not mean the employee should reject the salary, but should defer the pension, until such a time as they are actually retiring.
That doesn’t address the real situation. X retires. After retirement, is X legally and ethical precluded from returning to a similar job on a temporary basis with having to “unretire”, when there is no provision for unretiring? Should an organization needing his talents be prevented from hiring him (why would someone work for money if they have to give up the same amount, which they get without working?) because no one can come up with a coherent system without perverse incentives?
If its truly a temporary basis, then it wouldn’t be unethical, because the retirement would not have been used for a deceptive purpose. If X is collecting salary for an extended period though, that sounds more like a permanent job, and X really just “retired” in order to double his salary. Your questions are revealing about how economically flawed the system is, but I don’t think they are relevant to the ethical question. I completely agree that people should not be precluded from taking jobs when they want to work, and seeking maximum compensation for that work. If this were a private industry where the management was just inept or just not cost conscious, I think the ethical implications would change, but these people are being paid with confiscated funds. Doesn’t a “public servant” have the ethical duty to not deliberately exploit a completely broken system because of where the money comes from? Isn’t the retirement not really a retirement if it is to exploit the pension system, and therefore deceptive? Isn’t deception for the purposes of personal gain inherently unethical?
It is obvious that the system here creates a scenario where people who would be willing to stand on principle would certainly lose out, while those who are willing to retire early, then go back to work to perform the same duties will see a windfall at the taxpayers’ expense. But asking people to stand on principle, especially when its difficult, is the entire purpose of an ethical system.
Here is how I see it. X sits down at a blackjack table. The dealer, knowing what he’s doing and not caring, is playing with both cards showing, and everyone at the table is consequently raking it in. If you get up from the table, someone else will just take your place. Can you ethically continue to play? (I should also specify that the funds are coming from a party which cannot prevent them from being used in such a way)
1. When does it not become a “truly” temporary job? Is the holder of such a job obligated to quit? I’ve hired temps who worked for years—is that their fault?
2. X took an action that is legal, transparent and permitted to obtain money contractually owed to him. Explain how that is unethical on X’s part. It just isn’t.
3. Excuse me: “confiscated funds”? That’s both a loaded term and an inaccurate one. The Supreme Court has made its determination. Taxpayer funds are part of the social bargain.
4. What principal? No individual is ethically obligated, or even ethical, to take the punishment for a flawed system on himself when it accomplished nothing constructive, and you are still ducking the issues: X has a right to retire, and get a full pension. An organization who feels X is the best one to do what is in the public’s interest has a right, indeed an obligation, to seek his services. He has a right to say yes, and a right to accept what is offered for his services, or to make the best bargain he can. Which aspect of this sequence to you think X has an ethical obligation to block?
5. I see no difference between the dealer showing both cards and the dealer playing badly. In a game, even a game involving money, it is not cheating to exploit one’s opponent’s carelessness.
1. I can’t give you a rule here, because you are right, some people who intend to work temporarily end up working a long time, and no, they should not be required to quit. I would have to say it is the intent to remain retired, or the intent to retire solely to collect pension and subsequently return to work, which makes the difference. This is obviously an unenforceable legal standard, but the ethical implications rest on the deception. In one case, someone intends to retire, and they are not doing anything wrong. In another, they are just lying to take advantage of the system.
2. This statement presumes that something being legal, transparent, and contractually permitted makes it ethical, and asks me to try to say that something legal, transparent, etc. is unethical. I obviously can’t do that, but I will repeat that it is the deceptive nature of the act. A loyal employee is rewarded with a pension for their retirement. A person who retires, just to collect the pension, without the intent to remain retired, is lying so they can get paid.
3. I wasn’t questioning the government’s authority to tax, nor saying anything about whether people have the duty to pay, which they do. I think taxes are by definition confiscatory because the public has no choice but to pay them. If I misused the word or implied something else it was unintended.
4. X does have the right to retire, and get whatever pension he is entitled to. If the person retires, believing they no longer want/can work, and then down the road rethinks his decision, I don’t think they would be unethical, they have every right to do so. But isn’t a retirement, which is supposed to be requisite for receiving a pension, with the intent to come back to work, a lie? The principle is not to deceive for personal gain. The legal right to retire doesn’t justify pretending to retire to collect a larger paycheck.
5. My impression is that the dealer is not actually the one playing, but the house, and the house rules define how the dealer is required to play. The dealer in my metaphor was supposed to be a flaw in the system which was open to be exploited for personal gains at the expense of someone who was not responsible for the flaw. The way I look at it, the dealer (pension system/writers of the pension system) are not the ones who suffer the burdens of the flaw, the house/public is. In my view, the person who works for the public should not exploit a system which misuses public funds. I know, the metaphor stunk, I’ll do better next time.
Re: An organization who feels X is the best one to do what is in the public’s interest has a right, indeed an obligation, to seek his services. He has a right to say yes, and a right to accept what is offered for his services, or to make the best bargain he can.
I once again agree with this, but the unethical act is done before all this occurs. The act is the fake retirement. I think I addressed all the issues now.
Ryan, my only disagreement is with the presumption that a retirement is fake if the retiree is persuaded to go back to work. I see no verifiable fakery in the facts. A retirement is not rendered fake retroactively by subsequent events.
The employee beneficiary is receiving money from the pension system because they have chosen to retire. Then the retiree immediately returns to work in the SAME EXACT position from which they retired- because they can- and the system (for some reason) allows it.
When Christie puts caps on Superintendent salaries, many opted out immediately. Apparently it wasn’t “all about the children” , it was “all about the money” and these folks didn’t miss the opportunity to let the public know that they would return as interims. And many of them have.
I get that they are working in a system that allows it. They are also “working the system” and that takes me back to my original position. Maybe ethics is too strong a word. Let’s use morals instead.
Barbara, I’m still looking for a recommendation other than “change the system.” Under ideal circumstances, what would you want the interim superintendent to do to avoid “taking advantage”? Fall on a sword? Let someone else take advantage?
Clearly the system has to change. But Jack these folks aren’t sitting on a beach in Florida hoping their phones ring. The floors are still damp from the retirement party when they return to work. What they are doing amounts to legal extortion of tax payers.
So let’s be clear, here. What is it that you consider unethical? Double-dipping, or retiring early in order to double-dip?
If it’s the latter, I’m in agreement, but that’s far more specific and it depends upon the intentions of the retiree/employee. But if a person has retired in good faith and afterwards sees reason to take another position with a new salary, I don’t see the ethical problem.
Clarifications are in order. The initial story left me unclear as to whether two systems were involved or if the money was all from the same source. No system should allow someone to retire and draw pension and then continue to work within that same system. Yes, it happens. If the system providing the retirement compensation is different from the one covering the subsequent employment, the situation of drawing salary twice from the same source is avoided.
That said, if the rules allow it, it is not unethical to participate.
If those who have the power to change the system to eliminate the doubling up do not do so as it will kill their golden goose before they can get to the eggs, they are corrupt as well as unethical.
But isn’t this person in the position to change the system? She is the superintendent, after all. I’m sorry, unless she says that the schools have plenty of money and we need to lower the taxes so they don’t have such a surplus from now on, being paid $298,000/year just reeks. As superintendent, she has an obligation to wisely use the taxpayer money for the best benefit of the children. Almost $300,000 of taxpayer education money for the superintendent doesn’t cut it. If she isn’t responsible, then who is? Don’t tell me the system is. Systems aren’t responsible, people are.
Michael- One story I read says this woman only works 3 days/week 🙂