SOCIAL INSECURITY RULES CAN SLAM RETIRED PUBLIC WORKERS.

Byline: Lisa Friedman Washington Bureau

When Gladys and Mel Roseman retired after a combined four decades teaching Los Angeles schoolchildren, they were stunned to find their Social Security benefits slashed to less than $100 a month.

Yet the Rosemans, who own their Encino home and have lifelong health insurance, count themselves among the luckier victims of a set of obscure laws that experts say drain retirement benefits from thousands of California teachers, firefighters and other public employees each year.

Known as the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset, the measures primarily affect city, county and state employees in California and 14 other states where public employment is not covered by Social Security.

Reps. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, and Howard Berman, D-Van Nuys, have worked for years to repeal the provisions, but have never been successful.

Now, after President George W. Bush featured Social Security reform prominently in last week's State of the Union address and as Congress appears likely to consider overhauling the system, McKeon and Berman say they see their first real opportunity for change.

``We want this to be front and center for any Social Security reform, because the present situation is so unfair,'' Berman said. ``It's so discriminatory against government workers who have spent time in non-Social Security work.''

Added McKeon, ``If the president and the Congress work together on reforming Social Security, we hope to make good progress.''

Enacted in 1977, the offset was designed to prevent those earning government pensions and Social Security spousal or survivor benefits from ``double-dipping,'' or obtaining the maximum benefit under both systems.

Under the offset and the second measure, known as the Windfall Elimination Provision, public employees' Social Security spousal or survival benefits are chopped by two-thirds.

For Gladys Roseman, the real-life implications amount to hundreds of dollars a month, by her estimate. The 70-year-old former Los Angeles Unified School District children's center teacher receives $80.20 a month in Social Security benefits.

The cut came because Roseman taught for 15 years in the private Temple Beth Hillel day school in North Hollywood before transferring to the LAUSD. Because she worked for a government organization, her benefits were quartered when she retired.

``All the time I was in private school I was paying into Social Security, but I'm not getting it,'' she said.

Meanwhile, Mel Roseman, 75, spent his career teaching mentally disabled students and later English as a second language in San Fernando Valley schools. Because he gets a government pension, he is ineligible for Social Security spousal benefits.

Currently, the couple depend upon their state teachers retirement pension. Between that and a lifetime of savings, the Rosemans aren't suffering financially - but they also aren't spending their retirement years the way they thought they would.

``We have children living in Tennessee and Washington state, and we certainly can't visit them the way we would like to,'' Mel Roseman said.

Still, he added, ``We were lucky. We were able to save and we own our own house. We're not starving. It's the widows of men who worked hard, (paid into) Social Security all their lives and would have qualified for substantial widow's benefits who are really suffering an injustice.''

That's the way JoEllen Winnikoff, 73, of Sherman Oaks feels as well.

Winnikoff's first husband, a private attorney, paid into the Social Security system for more than 40 years before he died about 20 years ago. Yet Winnikoff, a teacher at Hale Junior High School in Woodland Hills, was told she wasn't entitled to her husband's Social Security benefits because of the offset.

Like the Rosemans, Winnikoff said her situation is far from dire.

``I'm living. I can't do some of the things I'd like to do, I can't be as generous as I would like with my children and I can't travel, but I'm not starving.''

What angers her, Winnikoff said, is the attitude that she and other public employees would be gaming the system if they were to receive spousal benefits.

But David John, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, D.C., said the offset is necessary to prevent public employees who are not part of the Social Security system from claiming benefits for which they would be ineligible.

The windfall elimination, meanwhile, aims to prevent people with highly compensated government service and brief, relatively low-paid Social Security-covered jobs from having their retirement benefits calculated under the more favorable formula. That should be used only for retirees with low Social Security earnings, critics say.

``They're blunt-edged tools, but they actually meet a specific policy need,'' John said.

Berman and McKeon disagree.

``The offsets discriminate against people who choose to work for the government,'' Berman said.

Both Berman and McKeon acknowledged that repealing the provisions would be costly, but noted that last year more than 300 lawmakers supported the legislation. This year, with Congress not even fully in session, more than 122 House members have signed on.

``I don't think you can turn your back on a bill that has a majority of the House co-sponsored,'' Berman said. ``We have a good chance of attacking this problem.''

Lisa Friedman, [phone]

lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

(color) Gladys and Mel Roseman's Social Security benefits were decimated because of the little-known measures.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer