This is for certificated and classified school employees across California — teachers, counsellors, instructional aides, office and facilities staff, food service, and community-college faculty. Your pension is set by statute and you cannot simply add more to it. The part you actually control is the supplemental account, and in California school districts that account has historically been sold from a table at a school site rather than chosen from a comparison.
What is actually different about your money
Begin with which system you are in, because the answer is not automatically the teachers' one. Certificated employees — anyone whose position requires a credential — are CalSTRS members. Classified employees in the same building, on the same bell schedule, are usually CalPERS members instead: instructional aides, office and attendance staff, custodians, groundskeepers, bus drivers, food service, campus supervisors and most technology staff. The two systems have different formulas, different vesting, different retirement ages and different reciprocity rules, and the number of people who discover this at the retirement appointment rather than at hire is genuinely striking. Community colleges add a third layer, with full-time faculty in CalSTRS, part-time and adjunct arrangements that differ, and classified college staff generally in CalPERS. CalSTRS · CalPERS.
Now the part that is worth actual money. California school 403(b)s run through district-approved vendor lists. Your district is your employer, not your investment adviser; the list is not a recommendation and inclusion on it says nothing whatever about cost. For decades the practical result was that these accounts were sold rather than advised — representatives at back-to-school nights and staff-lounge tables, enrolling new teachers into products they reasonably took on trust. That is not a rumour and it is not recent; it has been documented for decades, and it is the direct reason California created 403bcompare.com, a registry administered by CalSTRS where vendors must disclose product costs in a comparable format. A great many educators own an annuity contract inside their 403(b) carrying mortality-and-expense charges, rider fees, underlying fund expenses and a surrender schedule, and have never once seen those four added together. Our full 403(b) guide.
Third, Social Security. For your CalSTRS-covered teaching years you do not pay Social Security tax, and those years add nothing to your Social Security record. Most educators have a record anyway — a career before teaching, summer and second jobs, a spouse. For decades two federal rules, the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset, cut those benefits down sharply for public-pension recipients. Both were repealed by the Social Security Fairness Act, signed on 5 January 2025. That is a real change in the arithmetic, and it means a generation of staff-room advice and essentially every article written before 2025 is now wrong on the point. Check your own figures at ssa.gov rather than against anybody's memory.
What you are usually sold
The 403(b) most educators own was not selected after a comparison. It was signed at a table, often in the first month of a first teaching job, usually by someone who had never been shown a second option. The representative was typically a licensed insurance agent offering a legitimate product from an approved list, and plenty of those accounts are perfectly serviceable. But a commission-paid sale is not the same activity as advice, and the distance between a layered annuity contract and a plain custodial account holding index funds is not small once it compounds across a thirty-year career.
A low-cost alternative is not exotic and it is not hard to describe. It is a custodial 403(b) account under IRC § 403(b)(7) holding broad index mutual funds: one visible expense ratio, no mortality-and-expense charge, no rider fees, no surrender schedule, and you can leave whenever you like. It may well already be sitting on your district's vendor list next to the contract you own. Look both up on 403bcompare.com before you conclude anything.
None of that is illegal and not all of it is wrong. But you are entitled to know how the person recommending it is paid, and to compare. Our standard · our fees, published · the difference between an RIA and a brokerage.
What we do instead
Bring the statement and, if you can find it, the contract. We answer five questions in plain English: what you own, what it costs all-in expressed as one annual percentage, what it would cost to leave this year, what it is invested in, and what else your district's list offers. Sometimes the honest answer is that your account is fine and you should keep contributing to it. When that is the answer, we say it, and there is nothing to buy.
Then the contribution structure. Most districts offer both a 403(b) and a 457(b), and those carry separate federal limits — a school employee can fund both in the same year, which is one of the largest tax-advantaged savings capacities available to anyone on a public salary. Which to fill first depends on the menus, the all-in costs, whether Roth is offered, and how early you might stop working. If you have fifteen years of service with the same qualifying employer we check the 403(b) 15-year rule as well; it is modest, it is fiddly, and it is routinely missed. The 457(b) guide.
And we coordinate all of it with the pension rather than around it. Your CalSTRS or CalPERS estimate sets the floor; the distance between that floor and the retirement you actually want sets the contribution rate. Service-credit purchases, the Defined Benefit Supplement and the survivor election belong in the same conversation, not in three separate ones five years apart. We do not administer your pension and we do not give tax advice — that is your system and your CPA — but nobody else is going to put the whole picture on one page for you. CalSTRS estimator.
The retirement structures that actually apply to you: CalSTRS, CalPERS (classified staff), 403(b), 457(b). Which of those fits depends on how you are paid and whether anyone else is on your payroll — the plan chooser walks through it, and this guide compares them honestly.
A first conversation, at no cost
Fifteen minutes on the phone. If your question has a short answer you get it on the call, and if we are not the right firm for you we will say so.
Where teachers and school staff are in Los Angeles and Orange County
We work across both counties from a principal office in Norwalk. These are the county guides, each naming the cities where this audience actually concentrates:
Our fees, published
No competing advisor page in this area publishes its fees. Here are ours.
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Investment management | 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year; Advisers may set a rate below the standard schedule, as low as 0%, at their discretion — and whatever rate applies to you is disclosed in writing before you engage. Our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5, states the fee as up to 2.00% of assets per year, subject to negotiation; the firm may waive all or part of it. Generally billed quarterly in arrears |
| Account minimum | No minimum account balance |
| Commissions and product fees | None — we are fee-only |
| Solicitor compensation | May be received or paid under disclosed arrangements |
| Initial conversation | Free, 15 minutes, no obligation |
Complete fee details in our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.
Questions
I am an instructional aide. Am I in CalSTRS?
Almost certainly not — classified school employees are usually CalPERS members, not CalSTRS members. It is the most common mix-up in California school employment, and it matters because the two systems have different retirement ages, different formulas and different rules about reciprocity and refunds. Your paycheque stub and your district's payroll office will both confirm which deduction is coming out. Confirm it now rather than at 58. CalPERS.
How do I find out what my 403(b) actually costs?
Two sources, both free. Look the product up on 403bcompare.com, the registry California created and CalSTRS administers, where the fees are disclosed in a comparable format. Then ask your vendor in writing for the total annual cost of your specific contract as one percentage — contract charges, any rider fees, and the underlying fund expenses added together — plus the current surrender schedule and the date it reaches zero. A provider that will not put those two numbers in writing has told you something.
Should I move my 403(b), or leave it where it is?
That is an arithmetic question, not a moral one. Weigh what leaving costs today against what staying costs every year, and check whether a lower-cost vendor sits on your district's own list, because an exchange between approved vendors is often possible within plan rules. Sometimes the surrender schedule means waiting two years and redirecting new contributions in the meantime. Sometimes the account is fine. We will tell you which, and we do not earn anything from the answer.
My district offers a 457(b) as well. Is that instead of the 403(b), or as well as?
As well as. The 457(b) limit is separate from the limit shared by 403(b) and 401(k) deferrals, so an eligible employee can contribute the full amount to each in the same calendar year. Very few people can fund both to the maximum, but knowing the room exists changes how you sequence raises, stipends and summer income — and a governmental 457(b) also allows penalty-free withdrawals after you separate from the district, which matters if you retire before 59½.
I was told my pension wipes out my Social Security. Is that still true?
No. The Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset were repealed by the Social Security Fairness Act signed on 5 January 2025, and public-pension recipients now receive their own, spousal and survivor Social Security benefits without those reductions. If you wrote off a spousal or survivor benefit years ago on that advice, it is worth reopening. Get your own figures from the Social Security Administration at ssa.gov — not from an article, and not from us.
What does this cost, and is there a minimum?
There is no minimum to open an account. We ask for $50 a month of continuing deposits, because a plan you do not fund is not a plan. Investment management is 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year, billed quarterly, and it is published on the site — which is more than most firms in this market will tell you before a meeting.
Do I have to have a lot saved already?
No, and that is deliberate. Most firms set a minimum precisely to avoid people at the start of this. We built the opposite: $0 to open, and the same fiduciary standard whether the account is four figures or seven.
¿Atienden en español?
Sí. Atendemos en español, y buena parte de nuestro material existe en español, escrito originalmente, no traducido por máquina.