Orange County has 28 school districts and roughly 450,000 students, and its districts are arranged in a way that catches people out: several cities contain a separate elementary district and a separate high school district. Moving between them is a change of employer, a change of vendor list, and sometimes a change of whether a 457(b) exists at all. The pension does not change. Everything around it can.
Where teachers and school staff are in Orange County
Santa Ana Unified is the county's largest district and one of the largest in California, and its campuses sit at the centre of the same civic core that houses the county's courts and offices. Garden Grove Unified and Westminster School District cover the neighbourhoods immediately west; Anaheim carries both Anaheim Elementary School District and Anaheim Union High School District as two distinct employers; Fullerton likewise has Fullerton School District and Fullerton Joint Union High School District. La Habra City School District sits on the county line, about ten minutes from our office.
Beyond those, Orange, Tustin, Irvine, Newport-Mesa, Placentia-Yorba Linda, Saddleback Valley and Capistrano Unified carry much of the rest of the county's certificated and classified workforce. The community colleges add three more employers: North Orange County Community College District with Fullerton and Cypress colleges, Rancho Santiago with Santa Ana College and Santiago Canyon, and Coast Community College District with Golden West, Orange Coast and Coastline. The Orange County Department of Education runs its own programs and provides fiscal oversight to the districts.
Throughout all of it, the same split applies: certificated staff are CalSTRS members and classified staff are usually CalPERS members. An instructional aide and the teacher in the same classroom can be in different retirement systems with different retirement ages, and neither of them was told so on the first day. CalSTRS · CalPERS.
What changes locally
The elementary-and-high-school arrangement is the local wrinkle that matters most. A teacher who moves from Anaheim Elementary to Anaheim Union has not simply changed campuses — that is a change of employer, which means a new approved vendor list, possibly a different third-party administrator, and a 403(b) left behind at the old one still charging whatever it charged. The same is true across Fullerton's two districts. Nothing about this is a scandal; it is just an administrative fact that quietly produces scattered accounts across a career, and almost nobody flags it at the time.
The county's districts are also deeply multilingual — Spanish across Santa Ana and Anaheim, Vietnamese across Garden Grove and Westminster — and a great many staff come from the same communities. We work in English and Spanish, and a substantial part of our written material was written in Spanish rather than translated into it. We do not offer Vietnamese and will not pretend to.
What we do about it
The first hour goes to the inventory, because Orange County's district structure produces more scattered accounts per career than most places: every 403(b) and 457(b), at every district, with the current statement and, where we can get it, the contract.
Then the cost comparison, using 403bcompare.com alongside your own paperwork, and a decision about each account on its own merits — keep, redirect new contributions, exchange to another vendor on the same list, or wait out a surrender schedule and move later. There is no single right answer, and any answer given before somebody has read your actual contract is a guess.
Then the pension itself: an official estimate from CalSTRS or CalPERS, the survivor election, and any service-credit purchase priced honestly against what the same money would do elsewhere. La Habra and Buena Park are ten minutes from us, Anaheim and Fullerton fifteen, Santa Ana and Garden Grove about twenty. Evenings and video are both normal here.
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 Los Angeles 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
Orange County has 34 incorporated cities and about 3.1 million residents. These are the ones where teachers and school staff concentrate, each with its own page:
- Financial advisor in Santa Ana
- Financial advisor in Anaheim
- Financial advisor in Garden Grove
- Financial advisor in Westminster
- Financial advisor in Fullerton
- Financial advisor in La Habra
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 teach in Anaheim. Which district am I actually in?
One of two, and it matters for your supplemental account. Anaheim Elementary School District and Anaheim Union High School District are separate employers with separate benefits administration. Your pay stub names your employer; your benefits office names the approved vendor list. Both are worth confirming before you open anything new.
Does the Orange County Department of Education work like a district?
For your purposes, largely yes — it is a public education employer whose certificated staff are CalSTRS members and whose classified staff are generally CalPERS members, with its own supplemental plan arrangements. Confirm the details with its benefits office rather than assuming they mirror whichever district you came from.
I am faculty at a community college here. Same rules?
Broadly, for full-time faculty: CalSTRS membership, a 403(b), and often a 457(b) as well. Part-time and adjunct arrangements are the ones to check individually, because they differ by district and some part-timers are placed in an alternative retirement plan rather than CalSTRS. Get it in writing from your district before you build a plan on top of it.
What does a low-cost 403(b) actually look like?
A custodial account holding broad index mutual funds, with a single expense ratio you can read on one line, no mortality-and-expense charge, no rider fees and no surrender schedule. That is the comparison point for anything else on the list. Look up both your current product and the alternatives on 403bcompare.com — the numbers are published, and they are not close in every case. The full review.
I moved from Garden Grove Unified to Santa Ana Unified. What follows me?
Your CalSTRS service credit, entirely. Your 403(b) does not — it stays with the vendor you opened it with, and your new contributions go to a vendor on Santa Ana's list. That gives you two accounts to compare, and the comparison is the whole exercise: same money, potentially very different annual cost.
Is your office realistically reachable from Orange County?
From north county, easily — La Habra and Buena Park are about ten minutes, Anaheim and Fullerton about fifteen, Santa Ana and Garden Grove about twenty. From Capistrano or Saddleback Valley it is a longer drive and most of those conversations happen by video. We are in Norwalk, about a mile from the county line, and that is our principal office.
¿Puedo tener esta conversación en español?
Sí, completamente — la reunión, los documentos y las preguntas de seguimiento. Buena parte de nuestro material se escribió originalmente en español, no traducido por máquina, y para muchas familias del condado de Orange esa es la diferencia entre entender el plan y solo firmarlo. Nuestro material en español.
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.