David Manson

If you were a faculty member at Indiana State University in the 1980s and possibly later, there is a good chance that your deferred compensation through TIAA was incorrectly calculated. That “miscalculation” with years of compounded interest amounts to thousands of dollars missing from your retirement funds. 

According to the employment agreement at Indiana State University in the 1980s, full time faculty members should have received a deferred compensation amount of 11% of your first $10,0000 of salary followed by 15% above $10,000. This deferred compensation should have started the beginning the third academic year of employment. That was not the case in my situation and for several former former faculty that I know.

Back in the 1980s and later, new faculty received no onboarding. There was no email, university website or even a workload calculation. HR at Indiana State University should have notified faculty when their 2-year vesting period ended and the TIAA paperwork for deferred compensation was due. They did not. Faculty received notifications months and even years after the vesting period ended. I know of one faculty member who never received notification. 

That was the culture of the university then. It was well known for falsifying employment histories and Workers Compensation reports, for its racial discrimination and even for illegal wiretapping and home break ins (see the Indiana Statesman article below). It is my experienced opinion that the administration of the university during the 1980s was very unprofessional. Although the current administration would like to sweep this under the rug, the university needs to accept responsibility for their past misdeeds.

To determine the shortage of your deferred compensation, contact TIAA by letter and request a report of all net contributions made to your TIAA account from Indiana State University. They will mail you a report with contributions listed by date from Indiana State University. Here is the contact information: https://www.tiaa.org/public/support/contact-tiaa 

Send your letter to TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett. The TIAA telephone representatives are not generally helpful with this matter. Write the executives directly and you will have success.

When you have that information, check to see if I.S.U. began making contributions beginning your 3rd year of teaching. In many cases, they did not. If that is your situation, feel free to contact me and we can discuss a class action lawsuit to recover those funds. With just a few former faculty willing to do this, I will contact Morgan & Morgan to begin the process on a contingency fee arrangement. Although many years may have passed, there is legal precedent (discovery rule) for recovery of your missing annuity contributions plus interest.

David Manson, D.M.A.
davidmansonmusic@gmail.com
(727) 341-4363