My career as a human resources director put me in the position a few years back to observe a labor-management dispute between a school board and a teachers union in a rural community in western Maine.

In the airing of the issues, a demand was made by labor that teachers be able to retire, and then return to work in the jobs they had previously held, at the same pay. Management resisted, insisting that the word “retire” had no meaning if a teacher “retired” to a full pension, then continued to work for full pay. The demand was not incorporated into the collective bargaining contract.

In my view, management was right. One is retired, or one is not retired. To retire with full benefits, and then to continue to work at full pay and full benefits, is a classic case of double dipping. It is not illegal, but it is ethically suspect and it is certainly poor public policy.

So it is with the Westbrook School Committee’s recent action to approve by a 6-1 vote Superintendent Stan Sawyer’s retirement and, minutes later, his rehire. This is bad public policy. Surely this will lead to many teachers with significant years of service likewise requesting to retire and continue working, getting, in essence, two incomes from one year’s work. Is the school committee prepared to reply affirmatively to those requests? Is the school committee in an ethical position to say no to teacher requests? I think that they have painted themselves into a corner. If they say no to the teachers, they have a prima facie case of preferential treatment of one employee above all others, a terrible and unsupportable action in employee relations terms.

The school committee may be saying that it is no skin off their backs that the superintendent gets paid a full salary for performing his job that he is allegedly retired from. True enough. The retirement income doesn’t come from the annual school department appropriation. I suspect that if the school department’s annual budget were funding both the salary and the retirement income, they know perfectly well that the public would have their heads.

If it is not acceptable to spend school department money to allow an employee to double dip, why is it acceptable to allow an employee to use money from other public sources (the Maine State Retirement System) to do it? It may come from my left pocket and it may come from my right pocket, but it undeniably comes from my (and your) pockets.

I ask that the School Committee reconsider its decision. If Mr Sawyer wishes to retire, then he should be permitted to do so with the blessings of the community that he has so ably served for so many years. If he has knowledge and experience that is invaluable to the committee (and I am sure that he does), contract with him as a consultant to handle specific projects in which his singular knowledge and expertise cannot be replaced. But he ought not to be on the public payroll, and the school superintendent job should be advertised and filled.

If the school committee thinks that there is merit in the notion of allowing employees to work full time after they have retired, it ought to think through very carefully in what situations the public interests are well served by this, when they aren’t, and codify the notion into a policy that applies to all employees.

Mike Miles is a Westbrook resident.