Teacher retirement

masters777

Anybody views on taking early retirement(between 55 and 60)? Regrets? Enjoyable? Any suggestions?

ethical

Not to hijack your thread but I heard that there may be 'Retirement Strands' coming back again as it would be much cheaper to 'get rid ' of teachers nearing the top of their salary scale and employing more on the newer yellow pack everything included model which is a total down grade of the profession with a lower salary and considerably worse conditions.

deiseindublin

I'm totally uneducated as to my pension rights and possibilities of getting out early.

What is full service?
What is minimum retirement age?
Can you still claim 2 years towards service (without the actual pension payment iywkim)?
Is there a website I can play with the different variables on?

It's a pity to say that only 20 years in and I'm starting to wonder about it.

TheDriver

All depends on when u started. Ethical-where did you hear that from?

deiseindublin

I started in 1995, was the first to have the higher PRSI stamp I think. Did 5 years in college before that.

rainbowtrout

deiseindublin wrote: »

I started in 1995, was the first to have the higher PRSI stamp I think. Did 5 years in college before that.

So you're class A? Same as me.

You can go at 55 with 33 years service plus the two years for training. That's the two years you are referring to I'd imagine. But I think pension and lump sum is calculated on 33 years service not 35.

You can go on reduced pension between 55-60 based on the number of years served. You can go from 60 -65 on years served or full pension if you have the years complete.

Eg I'll have 40 years done at 62. I can go then. Post 2004 teachers have to teach to 65 regardless of years done. Well they can leave but pension won't kick in until they turn 65.

I can't see me in teaching at 62. I'm more likely to be gone at 55 at the rate things are going.

Full service is 40 years. There is a website cspensions.gov.ie I think is the link. It's for civil service but their pension is calculated in the same way. Do consider that it calculates the pension on your current wage so you're better off having a look at the payscale and seeing what you're likely to be on at age 55 and putting that in to get a realistic figure

The calculation is simple enough anyway.

Number of years taught/ 80 x final salary.

Lump sum = 3(number of years taught)/80 x final salary

deiseindublin

I'm really glad you explained all that to me. I'll have 40 years done at 61 and v doubtful I'll be still there then either.

At 55 I'll have 34 years done and reckon that'll be my aim, kids/mortgage/college fees permitting, (when balanced against priceless sanity).

TheDriver

Correction- if you are pre 2004 you gp on pension based on service done and get a supplementary state pension until u are 67 when u get oap contributory which is same amount. U can go 50-55 on a actuary reduced pension. Post 2004 can go before 65 IF they have 40 years done.

ethical

We had a man in recently giving a talk about posts of responsibility and he seems to know a fair bit that goes on within the halls of the dept and he mentioned the retirement among other things such as the phasing out of posts,which may/will be replaced by a slight increase in salary for all teachers because they will be doing 'all the posts work'.This will work out cheaper if you get the top earners to cease teaching.I do not think it makes total economic sense but then again when were the Dept bothered or worried about about economics!

TheDriver

Govt economic sense is all about this years budget, they don't care about other years. Look at all senior gardai go in one go few years back.
Be cautious about people coming in to talk, I found they misinform or leave things out in order to sell their products.

Corkgirl18

We had a guy in talking to us today from one of the unions who said that on the newest scale (post 2013), retirement age is 68! Can anyone confirm this?
Couldn't find it online.

rainbowtrout

Corkgirl18 wrote: »

We had a guy in talking to us today from one of the unions who said that on the newest scale (post 2013), retirement age is 68! Can anyone confirm this?
Couldn't find it online.

Well post 2004, there's no upper limit to retirement and as post 2012 entrants won't get the state pension until they are 68 that's probably what he is referring to.

man_no_plan

TheDriver wrote: »

Correction- if you are pre 2004 you gp on pension based on service done and get a supplementary state pension until u are 67 when u get oap contributory which is same amount. U can go 50-55 on a actuary reduced pension. Post 2004 can go before 65 IF they have 40 years done.

I thought it was 65 regardless of service before pension would be paid, I had even been told that, for example, if you had 43 years at 65 say that you woild continue to pay contributions for 43 years but only get the 40/80 back. Some ass from Cornmarket trying to sell me a prsa mind, o find it very hard to trust anything they tell me.

2011abc

masters777 wrote: »

Anybody views on taking early retirement(between 55 and 60)? Regrets? Enjoyable? Any suggestions?

I've never heard of a teacher retiring in the last five years or so( and they nearly all go as early as possible because of the monster screw up of our conditions that been imposed ) that's been anything other than blissfully happy . Go while the going is good !

spurious

Went even earlier than that (went at 50) on cost-neutral. Money is tight, but the main things (house, car etc.) have been paid off, so I can manage, with a bit of correcting thrown in.

Pension is just under 16k and would have been substantially more had I stayed a few more years, but I'd had enough. I worked in quite difficult schools all my career.

I miss my colleagues and sometimes miss the idea of the kids, but I have much less aggression and anger in my life. It's odd when you realise you have not heard the f word directed at you or another person for a couple of months.

ethical

The pension issue is very important.I know quite a few teachers who had to go to England and elsewhere in the early 1990s and spent a number of years there ,teaching and doing other things until things got a bit better here but they will never reach 35 years service,40 years is out of the question totally.They tell me that it is really difficult to get good advice on what to do or to get some inkling as to when they may/might retire.Of course we will have a similar story in the next few years with the return of the emigrants of theses past 5 or 6 years.I ,personally,only know one teacher that retired on a full 40 year pension in the last 10 years and I would have been around a number of schools.

rainbowtrout

ethical wrote: »

The pension issue is very important.I know quite a few teachers who had to go to England and elsewhere in the early 1990s and spent a number of years there ,teaching and doing other things until things got a bit better here but they will never reach 35 years service,40 years is out of the question totally.They tell me that it is really difficult to get good advice on what to do or to get some inkling as to when they may/might retire.Of course we will have a similar story in the next few years with the return of the emigrants of theses past 5 or 6 years.I ,personally,only know one teacher that retired on a full 40 year pension in the last 10 years and I would have been around a number of schools.

I think we've gotten to the tail end of the teachers that got into teaching when free education was introduced at the end of the 60s and I'd wager that school attendance may have increased as a result in the late 60s early 70s which would have seen employment and 'jobs for life' in the teaching sector until entering secondary school became the standard model of education for teenagers.

The majority of teachers (particularly in primary) are women and it's not uncommon and it wasn't 30 years ago to take career breaks, job shares to rear children or to give up teaching completely for a few years. It's practically unheard of for a male teaching to take a career break or go on job share to stay at home with the kids.

We've had a few retirements in my school over the last few years, a couple of them had the 40 years, but were of that stock that started in the early 70s and did 40 years. We have had a few more that didn't have the full years done. Nowhere near it, which I was surprised by at the time.

I'd say teachers doing 40 years will become as rare as hen's teeth as time goes on. There are still plenty who will do the job for life and not change career, but for people entering the profession in the last ten years it has been tough to get a stable job, on full hours, which will have a knock on effect at the other end.

I did a few calculations as a result.


The current state pension is 230.30 per week, 11,975 per year.

I see that as the break even point, i.e. how many years do I have to teach to be guaranteed a pension equal to the state pension, given that the OAP is included in our total pension. I'm looking at this in light of the fact that if I went working in my local supermarket etc for 40 years and made my PRSI contributions etc, I would on retirement get 230 a week.

As the state pension is included in the teaching pension for teachers post 1995 who pay the A rate of PRSI, I think a calculation of how many years you have to work to earn the equivalent is interesting, given that we pay PRSI and we also pay into our pension from day one.

I have to assume the teacher is on full hours for the calculation, despite the fact that we know there are oodles of teachers out there struggling to get hours or are on part term contracts.

I wouldn't even begin to try and calculate a potential pension for a teacher on part time hours, or post 2012, career average earnings.

If a teacher works for 16 years and quits teaching or only has that much service, their pension would be preserved and calculated as follows



Assumptions:

Has Honours degree and Hons Dip Allowance (4918 + 1236)
Started on Point 3 of Pre - 2011 scale.
Finished on Point 18 after 16 years. (52472)
Worked Full hours for the entire duration, with no career breaks, job shares etc and also no special duties/assistant principals post.

Total finishing salary = 58626


16/80 * 58626 = 11725

Lump sum: 35175



I had a look at this weeks payslip. This fortnight I made €117 in payments into my pension, through superannuation and widows and orphans and approx €157 to the pension levy. €274.60 in total. Over the year that will be 7139.60. While I'm not ignorant of what is being taken out through the pension levy, I haven't thought about it in a while, and now I'm annoyed that I did look at it, because I'm paying 3k a year into the pension, but 4k a year to the pension levy. :mad:

So over the last five years (salary hasn't changed wildly) I have made enough payments with pension and pension levy to cover the lump sum above, and would still only get the equivalent of the state pension with 16 years service. Personally I haven't reached 15 years yet, let alone 16.

Obviously, I'm not about to stop working in my mid 30s and wait for my 11k pension at 65, I could work at something else for the next 30 years. But if I did go working in the local shop, I wouldn't be any better off pension wise for having worked 16 years in teaching beforehand. And I would have made 16 years of pension payments (not to mind the pension levy) and seen very little return for it. I can honestly see why some teachers do stick it out for the long haul, financially (mortgage and children aside), because perhaps they've invested a lot of money through compulsory pension payments and realistically, it looks like it only starts to go beyond state pension level after about 16-17 years.


So how is it going to pan out for teachers that don't have full service on retirement and particularly in the last 10 years or so on part time/low/subbing hours? How many years will they have to work to reach the break even point? Will they ever reach it, with low hours/subbing and a pension based on average career earnings?


I can theoretically do the 40 years. If I stick at teaching, I will have 40 years done at 62 and I'm pre 2004 so I can leave and get a pension before I'm 65. But that option isn't available to most teachers now as it's so hard to secure a job on full hours.

But the job has changed so much even since I started, it's not a job I would recommend to students now. Looking at the financial aspect of it, it's hard to see how it will attract people in the coming years with little job security, low hours, declining working conditions, and for many a career average pension that will struggle to get above the state pension. Why would you bother, if you have ability and can make more money in the private sector?

deiseindublin

Depressing reading. 16 years to come out with a state pension.

rainbowtrout

I did some more calculations (I like spreadsheets)

40 years on the pre 2011 scale with hons degree and dip and long service allowance gives a final salary of 67837, which gives a pension of 40/80 x 67837 = 33918


Just out of curiosity I did the career average earnings pension for the pre 2011 payscale. Assuming full service of course, starting on point 3 of the scale which would have been standard for any teacher with a degree and dip. Long service allowance included. Career average earnings = 59007. Therefore pension is 40/80 x 59007 = 29503


Then I did the calculation for the post 2012 payscale. Starting at point 1 with no allowances. So it takes 2 years longer to reach the top of the scale having to move up 25 points instead of 23 starting at point 3. Hadn't considered it before, but as the long service allowance is only paid out after 10 years at the top of the payscale, it also takes longer to get that allowance further reducing the career average earnings as a person on the old payscale will receive it for 8 years, while a teacher on the new scale will receive it for 6 of the 40 years.

Anyway: career average earnings for a teacher on the new payscale on full hours for 40 years (highly unlikely) is 51281. Therefore pension is 40/80 x 51281 = 25640.


I then did one more calculation. Assuming a teacher starts a job on 11 hours and remains on those part time hours for 8 years, before getting full hours and then retires after 40 calendar years. It would take 8 years to move up the first four increments on the payscale, due to increments being awarded for 600 or more hours worked in a year(which is a min of 18 hours a week approximately) and then they would move up annually once they moved to full hours. So their average career earnings would be 45055, but because of the part time hours they worked for the first 8 years (to reflect the situation for teachers entering the system in the last few years), they would have worked up 36 years service over those 40 years. That gives a pension of 36/80 x 45055 = 20274.

Realistically that's being very optimistic given that there are so many teachers out there scrambling for subbing work, and contracts even smaller than 11 hours.


Maybe those are the figures that should be given to anyone considering going teaching. Given that I'm using the wildly optimistic, best case scenario of 40 years full service, and many teachers are struggling to get hours for the first 7 or 8 years of their career and will not make 40 years whatever way they look at it, it's highly unlikely that many teachers in the new scheme will end up with a pension of >20k in the future.

I can put up the spreadsheet if anyone is interested.

rainbowtrout

deiseindublin wrote: »

Depressing reading. 16 years to come out with a state pension.

I know, but when I threw the figures in to a spreadsheet the difference between pre 2011 pension and post 2011 pension are stark.

If I bail out in the morning, and go to the private sector, I'll be no worse off than I would have been in a low paid private sector job. I'd get a lump sum, and I'd have effectively lost the payments into the pension for 16 years.

If I was a new entrant on career average, and being realistic, to expect many years of part time and subbing if lucky, I might get 20k after 40 years. Most new teachers won't see 40 years as ethical said above, so I think teachers entering the profession now, will be lucky to come out with state pension, or something between 12-20k if they stick it out for 40 years. That's depressing reading, particularly when you consider how much they will pay into compulsory pension payments. Taking a private sector job and paying their PRSI like we currently do will get them a pension that isn't much less and they could still have the option of a private pension.