OMG. If the possible-probable-maybe-definitely layoffs weren’t bad enough, here comes a new curve. La Maya discovered that the famous sick leave payoff we’re supposed to get disappears if you’re laid off. You get it only if you retire.
Yes. If they decide to can you, they give you an extra kick in the shins by taking away the benefit tied to the hundreds of hours of sick leave most of us have accrued—in my case, it’s over 1,100 hours, worth more than $17,500. That is tens of thousands of dollars more than the piddling unemployment insurance Arizona pays its workers. And it’s money I planned into my financial strategy for layoff. For that matter, even if I weren’t laid off, it’s money planned into my retirement finances.
There are only two ways to hang on to this fund in the face of a likely layoff:
1. Retire right now.
2. Declare that I will retire in the near future and then hope, if I don’t get laid off, that the dean will allow me to push the retirement date back a few months.
If you state that you are going to retire (says HR—who knows how accurate this is!) and the university then lays you off or otherwise cans you, the state still has to pay the benefit.
So, if I formally announced that I intend to retire just before my contract runs out, I could lay claim to something in excess of $17,600. And if I can engineer it with the dean’s office, when “retirement” time draws nigh, I “decide” that I’ve changed my mind and push it back another three months. This could, in theory, get me through the crisis: if I’m laid off, I walk with all my benefits; if I’m not, I still have the job that I need to hang onto until I reach age 70.
The risks, of course, are painfully obvious.
This is terrifying. At my place of employ, I believe that you cannot waffle on retirement. If you announce an intention to retire–and it has to be in writing–you cannot change your mind.
One colleague signed his retirement papers in June–he was still teaching a summer class–and died THAT afternoon. I have always wondered if his widow received her benefits…
You could always start your sick leave now. I’m sure you are about to have a nervous breakdown from the stress.
Good luck.
I am an obsessive planner for disasters, as you seem to be, and so far no disaster has occurred. So I hope your planning functions as a protective device.
It does seem nuts, doesn’t it? The Great Desert University is a weird place, though. Before committing to any such retirement scheme, I’ll have to get confirmation, in writing, that I’m allowed to change my mind.
There is a circumstance in which they explicitly say you can’t: if you agree to one of those two- or three-year buydowns wherein you go to 3/4 time one year, then 1/2 time, then even 1/4 time. If you get into that deal, you can’t back out of it.
I need the cash a lot more than I need the free time. The sick leave is worth money in the bank, and money in the bank is what is required.
Too many people die right about the time they retire. Which of course is what actuaries figure on….
Jeez, that is a huge issue. Just make sure you can “change” your mind. Thinking of you in this.
If you can’t afford to lose the sick leave, then you have no choice but to retire to protect it. Go with #2, and plan on retiring. IF (and that’s a big IF), you are permitted to push it back, then OK; but if not, then just go. To do otherwise is to gamble with $17,600 that you just can’t aford to lose. It’s a scary step whenever you make it!
That is terrible, Funny. I check in daily and am thinking of you!
OMG is right! I don’t know how you manage the stress of this every day. Must be hard to keep going to work not knowing what new surprise is in store. Wow – hang in there. Lots of positive energy coming your way.