For weeks, 73-year-old Ann Jaramillo had been bracing for the decision that could redefine her golden years. It had been nearly a decade since the retired Salinas teacher found out her benefits package had been miscalculated by her school district — and nine years since CalSTRS, the teachers’ state retirement agency, told her that she owed them $75,000.
Ann Jaramillo, 73, a retired Salinas teacher, found out that her benefits package had been miscalculated by her school district and was told she owed them $75,000. Jaramillo is one of 9,623 retired educators who have had their benefits reduced from 2016 to 2022, and one of many who are now paying back tens of thousands of dollars in “overpayment debt” to CalSTRS.
John Boyett, 68, at his home in Napa, Calif., Tuesday, April 11, 2023, retired from the St. Helena School District in June of 2016, after meeting with CalSTRS retirement counselors and his school district to review his benefit package. Years later, he was informed there was a miscalculation. He now owes CalSTRS $67,000 of “overpayment debt.”
Data from 2016 to 2020 showed that 5% of all retirees were affected by some sort of benefit adjustment — either positive or negative — due to employer error, late reporting, audit findings, adjustments by a retiree or some other change. Though the average monthly decrease was just $144, many teachers are facing monthly deficits 10 times larger.
“We used to plan trips,” said Jaramillo. “We’ve quit thinking about where we might go in the limited time we have left.” Stephanie Brown-Myers knows that feeling intimately. Seven years after her retirement in 2013, she and 184 other retired teachers at San Ramon Valley Unified found out they had been affected by a CalSTRS audit.