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A Letter from the President
Bradley Countermine, PhD
Fall is upon us! I hope you all had a happy transition back to teaching. The Association has been busy addressing various issues like tuition-based Driver Education salaries counting toward your pension and the planned implementation of an online 5-hour course, which we strongly oppose. Legislative Chairperson Mike Demay is your contact for that issue. Feel free to contact me about the pension crisis. More news/updates will be coming as they materialize. I'd personally like to thank Frank DeVenuto, Pete Macedo, and Charlie Trupia for their help advocating for us with NYSUT and NYSTRS.
Membership for the 2019-2020 year is now open. We have already had 20 new members sign up. Our Conference will be held at Turning Stone Conference Center in Verona, NY on March 7 and 8, 2020. Check this newsletter for more information. If you sign up early, often districts will cover the cost of the conference.
Also, please read the information below to see if the pension issue will affect you.
Stay safe on the roads, I'll be in touch.
Brad Countermine, PhD
NYSTRS DRIVER EDUCATION PENSION ISSUE
Fellow Teachers,
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Brad Countermine. I’m the current President of the New York State Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association. Recently, I spoke with a member that is retiring next year and asked NYSTRS about his pension numbers. He received a letter saying that tuition-based driver education apparently does not count toward final average salary for pension purposes.
• NYSTRS maintains that his driver education salary doesn’t count because it was paid through
tuition,
• On p. 54 of the NYSTRS Active Member Handbook, Driver Education was listed as a job that
can add into Tiers 1-5 FAS until two weeks ago (they changed the handbook),
• NYSTRS has already been instructing districts to stop reporting and paying pension costs
related to tuition-based driver education.
If you teach in a Driver Education program that is tuition-based, you need to check with your district(s) to see if you are being impacted. If you are, you should:
• Approach your Union Representative/Vice President/President and have him/her contact
NYSUT legal to apprise them of the situation,
• contact both both michael.contento@nystrs.org and sheila.gardella@nystrs.org
(supervisors at NYSTRS) by email at the links above AND by phone at (518) 447-2900 x6250,
• MOST IMPORTANTLY: Fill out the survey at the following link to provide your information:
Driver Education Pension Questionnaire
Driver Education Pension Questionnaire
Please complete the following questions to the best of your ability so we can determine how many teachers are af...
• We have to do this ASAP as the guidance has already started.
If there is anyone I have missed, or that you know of in this situation, have them follow the same course of action listed above.
Also, please consider joining the association if you haven't already as there is strength in numbers.
Thank you,
Brad
NYSDTSEA
New York State Driver Traffic Safety Education Association
P. O. BOX 2385
Binghamton, NY 13904
Committee phone number: 607 723-4216
Website: nysdtsea.org
Please Note the following information from State Education
If you have an urgent matter, you can email the DTSE office at EMSCDRVED@NYSED.GOV and flag the email as urgent or write “urgent” in the subject line.
Any questions you may have can be emailed to EMSCDRVED@NYSED.GOV, and you will receive a response in a timely manner.
