Fulton schools pensioners won’t have to repay $3 million in overpayment, but executive fired

About 400 Fulton County School’s pensioners who were overpaid about $3 million over the last 25 years will not have to repay the district. But the executive director who oversaw the pension when the mistake was discovered has been fired from her $97,000-a-year job.

Margaret Bryant, who said she was told May 17 she is being replaced, said Thursday the overpaid pensioners were notified in April they can voluntarily repay the money – as much as $79,330 in one case, but averaging about $8,870. So far, none has.

The over-payments were discovered in August 2011 by Bryant and the pension board staff and confirmed in December by an outside audit. Bryant, who was hired in 2008, reported that discovery to the pension board. During a school board meeting last September she was grilled by board about how the mistake happened and why the pension board — which operated autonomously — had delayed reporting it to the school board.

“After that meeting, I went home and told my husband I was going to be the scapegoat,” Bryant said Thursday. “I was blamed for a lot of things I didn’t do.” Bryant’s termination takes effect June 30.

Superintendent Robert Avossa said as a matter of policy he does not comment on specific personnel matters.

The overpayment prompted the Fulton School board to ask the county's legislative delegation to introduce House Bill 380 this past legislative session. The bill passed, giving the school board ultimate authority over the pension board.

Under the new structure, the school board for the first time will appoint pension board members, including the school superintendent, though he will not have a vote. The resolution of the overpayment was delayed for months until the IRS ruled earlier this year that the district does not have to put the $3 million back into the pension for the plan to remain in compliance with tax laws. Instead, the county eats the loss.