Michael Neiffer

POTTSTOWN PA – Rather than simply complain about how huge increases in the cost of funding teachers’ pension plans are hurting state school districts, the president of the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors wants to do something about it. Michael Neiffer’s proposed solution: become one of the pension decision-makers.

Neiffer announced his interest Tuesday (April 26, 2011) in running for election as the sole public school boards’ representative on the board of trustees for the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS).

Neiffer and his fellow Pottsgrove school board members learned of the election possibility Tuesday afternoon, in a letter from PSERS delivered with their regular meeting information packets. By the time the board met Tuesday night at the district offices on Kauffman Road, Pottstown PA, Neiffer said he had already decided to enter his candidacy.

PSERS is the entity that governs the investments, disbursements and other business related to pension plans involving qualified public school employees statewide, including those in the Pottsgrove district. Lower investment returns experienced by PSERS, combined with an increase in the number of pensioners approaching retirement, has caused amounts paid to it by school districts to rise dramatically.

Neiffer locally has been an occasionally harsh critic of the way PSERS operates and how its cost pass-throughs adversely affect districts like Pottsgrove.

PSERS’ current school board representative is Richard N. Rose. His three-year term expires Dec. 31 (2011). Rose is a resident of Bethel Park PA, south of Pittsburgh, and was first elected to the PSERS board in 2000. At the time of his most recent re-election, in December 2008, Rose served as vice president of both the Bethel Park school board and the Allegheny County Intermediate Unit.

PSERS’ elections policy requires Neiffer to submit several forms by June 17 to certify his candidacy, including a biography, a candidate’s affidavit, and a nominating petition signed by at least 25 members of school boards from a minimum of five different school districts. Neiffer said he expected to download the necessary forms from the trustees’ website.

Several of his board colleagues promised to circulate nominating petitions among other school directors they know.

The election itself is conducted by mail, with ballots sent to all PSERS’ “eligible active certified (professional) members, active non-certified (non-professional) members, annuitants or school board members for whom addresses are available.”

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ April 26 meeting):

• Pottsgrove President Plans For Run As PSERS’ Trustee