It’s an Offer He Says Is Not Enough : Culver City: Howard Bennett has been on a quest to gain lifetime health benefits for school employees. A tentative pact shortchanges retirees, he says.

Howard Bennett’s name should be Howard Benefit.

For four years, the Culver City High School English teacher has made a pest of himself to the school board and the school district’s two competing teachers unions with his campaign to ob tain lifetime health benefits for district employees.

Somewhere along the line, they started listening. The teachers and the district this month reached a tentative agreement to provide lifetime health coverage from the state’s Public Employees Retirement System, as Bennett had urged.

So is Howard Bennett pleased? Don’t bet on it.

“It does not go far enough,” he said, noting that the agreement provides only partial coverage, not the full coverage for past retirees and current employees he has been seeking.

“This is not the result we had fought for these many years,” he said.

Bennett, 61, launched his crusade in 1987, motivated in large part by outrage that retired school employees’ health benefits expired completely when they reached 65, and they were left with just federal Medicare coverage.

Under the tentative agreement with the teachers bargaining unit, the Culver City Teachers Assn., the district will pick up part of the cost of health coverage under the state PERS system for past retirees and for current employees once they reach 65. The PERS insurance functions as a supplement to Medicare coverage. The coverage comes in a variety of categories, but a typical PERS policy for a retiree and spouse also covered by Medicare costs $3,420 a year.

The agreement calls for the district to pick up $1,542 of this cost annually for future retirees once they reach 65. The agreement also allows past retirees to enroll in the PERS program, but the district will cover only $192--less than 6%--of the annual cost. Bennett dismisses this as a token contribution and a “sick joke.”

But in a way, it is also a start. Bennett, who has stacks of files in his Playa del Rey home documenting his battle, started alone in 1987 with an appeal to the school board to provide PERS coverage for retirees. He was pointedly told it was a matter for district and union negotiators to decide. Now he heads an organization of 600 members called the School Employees Assn. for Lifetime Health Coverage.

Recently, the Culver City Teachers Assn.--one of the two unions that Bennett has been bashing over the years with his mass mailings--announced the tentative agreement to school employees in a flyer describing the terms. On the bottom is a small box thanking Bennett for his “indefatigable persistence.”

Bennett says thanks, but no thanks. “(That) implies my support and endorsement of the agreement,” he said. “That is simply not true. We do congratulate the CCTA for getting into PERS, but it is not enough.”

Bess Doerr, president of the teachers union, said the union had negotiated for full coverage, but the district said it was too costly. “It’s been a major priority of our bargaining unit,” Doerr said. “The district just couldn’t afford to pay for it.”

A ratification vote on the tentative agreement is scheduled for Thursday. Among other things, the agreement provides for a 3% pay raise for teachers.

Bennett supported the Culver City Teachers Assn. in its 1988 bid to oust the Culver City Federation of Teachers as the bargaining representative, but his campaign turned against the association when it failed to negotiate lifetime health benefits.

“Howard wanted it done quicker than it was possible to do,” Doerr said. “It’s always been our priority. We’ve been trying for PERS every year we’ve been at the bargaining table.”

In the past, district officials said they couldn’t afford the PERS plan because under state law they had to make the same dollar contribution to all retirees that it made to employees.

This year, under a new state public health coordinator and a new interpretation of the law, the district is able to negotiate a contract, said Ralph Villani, assistant superintendent of personnel services.

“It’s not a change of heart on the part of the district,” Villani said. “We’ve always been very anxious to move into the state’s health plan.”

He estimates there are 200 to 300 retired employees who could enroll in PERS if they wish to pay their share, which comes to $2,256 a year. “I don’t know how many out there would be willing to do that,” he said.

Bennett has never bought the district’s argument that it doesn’t have enough money. In 1988, for example, he held a “Find the Money Contest” to generate ideas on where the district could save money to pay for lifetime benefits.

The winning idea was to reduce the district’s payroll tax liability and redirect part of the employees’ pretax income to pay for health benefits. Another idea was to sell some of the district’s unused property. The district rejected both ideas.

This month, Villani sent a memo to employees about a new tax savings plan that will be implemented. Bennett says it looks remarkably like the winning idea from his contest. The district is also beginning to sell unused school sites.

“Don’t tell me they don’t have the money,” Bennett said.

Bennett, a lanky man with clear blue eyes shaded by caterpillar eyebrows, is a former competitive ocean swimmer who was one of the early leaders of the Heal the Bay environmental organization. He says his obsession with health benefits began after he ran up about $10,000 in medical bills for a knee operation. Most of it was covered by his health insurance, but it prompted him to look into what kind of coverage he would have when he retired. He was appalled to learn that at age 65, “they cut you off.”

Bennett’s efforts have been all-consuming. “It’s been time-intensive. When I work on something there are no days and nights,” he said. “You have to be willing to put your life where your ideals are, and it can’t be just for 24 hours. It has to be for as long as it takes.

“I believe that if you really feel that something is worthwhile it should be an open-ended commitment,” Bennett said. “If you’re willing to wait a lifetime for something, it will come.”

Bennett could have retired last year and picked up a $35,000 bonus, but he pledged to continue his campaign. Now that the district will offer PERS, he says he is not sure if he will retire.

“I may . . . stick around to see the full implementation of PERS next year,” Bennett said.

As to continuing the campaign: “I’m going to sit and think a while. I’m going to listen to what a lot of people say to me. We have a lot of support now.

“I could walk away and call it a victory, couldn’t I?” Bennett said. “But when I think of the many people who have given . . . so many years to the school district and (past retirees) are given $192, I can’t call that a victory. I can’t live with that.”