Los Angeles County has 80 school districts, several community college districts and roughly 1.3 million students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. Every district is a separate employer with its own approved vendor list, its own third-party administrator and its own decision about whether to offer a 457(b) at all. Your pension is statewide. Almost everything else about your supplemental account is local.
Where teachers and school staff are in Los Angeles County
Los Angeles Unified is the obvious centre of gravity — the second-largest district in the country, with campuses across the City of Los Angeles and several surrounding cities. Its certificated staff are CalSTRS members and its classified staff are CalPERS members, a split that runs through every district in this list and catches people constantly. What happens to your accounts if you leave LAUSD.
But most of the county's educators do not work for LAUSD. The southeast corridor around our office alone carries Norwalk-La Mirada Unified, ABC Unified, Downey Unified, Little Lake City, East Whittier City, Whittier Union High, Montebello Unified, Bellflower Unified, Paramount Unified and Lynwood Unified, with Cerritos College and Rio Hondo College among them. Long Beach Unified is one of the largest districts in the state in its own right. Pomona Unified anchors the east county. Each of those is a separate employer with a separate list of 403(b) vendors. Leaving Long Beach Unified.
Community colleges sit slightly to the side of the same structure. Full-time faculty across the Los Angeles Community College District, Cerritos, Rio Hondo, El Camino, Mt. San Antonio and Pasadena City College are generally CalSTRS members; classified college staff are generally CalPERS; and part-time faculty arrangements differ enough that they should be confirmed individually rather than assumed. CalSTRS · CalPERS.
What changes locally
Here is what actually changes when you cross a district line in this county. The pension does not — CalSTRS and CalPERS are statewide, and service credit follows you. The supplemental account does. Each district approves its own vendors, so the menu you had at one employer may not exist at the next; a 457(b) offered by one district may be absent at the one across the boulevard; and the old 403(b) does not follow you anywhere on its own. It sits where it is, still charging whatever it charged, until somebody decides otherwise.
With 80 districts in one county, mid-career moves are routine, and a twenty-five-year career here can leave three or four supplemental accounts scattered across three or four vendor lists. Inventorying them is unglamorous work and it is usually the most valuable single afternoon in this whole subject — because you cannot compare costs you have not found, and small balances left behind have a way of being quietly forced out to an IRA nobody opened on purpose.
What we do about it
We start with an inventory: every 403(b) and 457(b) you have ever opened, at every district you have worked for, with the current statement for each. Old logins get recovered, orphaned accounts get found, and the total cost of the collection gets written down in one place — often for the first time.
Then we work through your current district's list. An exchange between approved vendors is frequently possible within plan rules, and where a lower-cost custodial option already exists on the same list the arithmetic is usually short. Where a surrender schedule makes leaving expensive this year, the sensible answer is often to redirect new contributions and wait it out rather than to pay for the privilege of tidiness. The full 403(b) review.
And we set the contribution against your actual pension estimate rather than against a rule of thumb. Norwalk-La Mirada, ABC, Downey and Whittier staff are a short drive from our office, Long Beach and Montebello not much further, and we keep evening hours because nobody wants a financial meeting during a prep period. Start with the estimator.
The structures that apply: CalSTRS, CalPERS (classified staff), 403(b), 457(b). The full guide for teachers and school staff goes through each one, and here is the same audience in Orange County.
Fifteen minutes, no charge
We are in Norwalk, which is inside Los Angeles County and minutes from the Orange County line. Come to us, we come to you, or we do it by video — evenings by video.
Your city
Los Angeles County has 88 incorporated cities and about 9.7 million residents. These are the ones where teachers and school staff concentrate, each with its own page:
- Financial advisor in Los Angeles
- Financial advisor in Downey
- Financial advisor in Norwalk
- Financial advisor in Whittier
- Financial advisor in Long Beach
- Financial advisor in Pomona
- Financial advisor in Montebello
- Financial advisor in Lynwood
All 89 cities we publish a page for →
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 changed districts twice. Where are my old 403(b) accounts?
Wherever you left them, unless a small balance was force-transferred somewhere you were notified about and forgot. Start with the vendors named on your oldest pay stubs, then ask each former district's benefits office who its third-party administrator was in the relevant years. This is genuinely a phone-call exercise, and it is the part of the job we are happy to do alongside you rather than lecture you about.
Does my district have to offer a 457(b)?
No. Some Los Angeles County districts offer one, some do not, and it can change. Ask your benefits office directly, because where both exist the two limits are separate and the combined capacity is substantial. A governmental 457(b) also allows penalty-free access after you separate from the district, which matters for anyone planning to stop before 59½. The 457(b) guide.
I am classified staff at a district near Norwalk. Which system am I in?
Almost certainly CalPERS rather than CalSTRS — classified positions across ABC, Norwalk-La Mirada, Downey, Whittier and the rest follow the same pattern. Different retirement age, different formula, different refund and reciprocity rules from your certificated colleagues. Confirm it from your own statement, and plan from that rather than from what a teacher told you.
Is 403bcompare.com actually useful, or is it a formality?
It is useful. It is a state registry administered by CalSTRS where vendors selling to California school employees must disclose their products and fees in a comparable format, and it will show you what your own district's vendors offer side by side. It is free, it is neutral, and it is not run by anyone selling you anything — including us.
I teach at LAUSD and my spouse is classified at Downey Unified. Two systems in one house?
Yes — CalSTRS for you, CalPERS for your spouse, with different retirement ages and different survivor elections. It is completely workable and it is not unusual in this county, but it does mean the two retirement dates should be planned together rather than separately. Each of you can get an official estimate from your own system; we put both on one page.
I moved from Long Beach Unified to Norwalk-La Mirada. What happened to my 403(b)?
Nothing, which is the point. Your CalSTRS service credit carried across; the 403(b) stayed with the vendor you opened it with, under whatever terms it carries, and your new contributions can only go to a vendor on the new district's list. So you now have two accounts to compare rather than one — and that comparison is where the money is. Leaving Long Beach Unified.
Do you work with community-college faculty?
Yes, and the part-time question comes up often. Full-time faculty at the county's colleges are generally CalSTRS members; part-time and adjunct arrangements vary by district and by assignment, and some part-timers are in an alternative retirement plan instead. That is worth confirming with your district's benefits office in writing before building anything on top of it. Cerritos College and Rio Hondo are both close to our office.
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.