You have a pension that runs on its own formula, a salary schedule you didn’t negotiate, and a 403(b) you were handed on your first day without much explanation.
Most financial advice is built for a 401(k), an employer match, and a salary you negotiated. Teaching runs on a completely different system. Koinos works with Treasure Valley teachers on the pension, the retirement accounts, and everything else, together, instead of as separate problems.
Most financial advice assumes a career that doesn’t look like yours.
Idaho teaching doesn’t come with a 401(k) or an employer match. It comes with PERSI, a pension most people outside education don’t have, and a 403(b) that behaves nothing like a standard employer plan.
Salary moves on a set schedule tied to years of service and additional education, not negotiation or a job change. A plan built around a generic career treats the pension as an afterthought instead of what it usually is: the largest asset in the household, and one that’s easy to underestimate simply because you never see a balance on it.
The specific questions a teaching career raises.
PERSI is the pension covering most Idaho school employees. Unlike a 403(b) or a 401(k), you’re not managing an account balance and hoping it lasts: PERSI promises a monthly check for life, based on a formula tied to your years of service and salary, not on how the market performs. It’s worth planning around what your own PERSI statement actually says rather than a general figure, since the details shift from time to time.
PERSI is a floor, not the whole plan. Most districts also offer a 403(b) as a way to save on top of it, and what’s available differs by district, so it’s worth asking yours directly what you have access to.
A teaching career doesn’t compound the way a lot of private-sector careers do. Your salary moves on a set schedule tied to years of service and additional education, not negotiation or a job change, and your pension is quietly building value in the background the whole time. What matters, and what to focus on, looks different early in a career than it does close to retirement, and a plan should shift with it instead of treating every year the same.
Building a budget that actually holds up, month to month, is the starting point for most of what comes after it: retirement contributions, an emergency fund, paying down debt. That looks different on a teacher’s salary and pay calendar than it does on a typical corporate paycheck, and a plan built around a generic budget template usually misses something a teacher-specific one wouldn’t.
PERSI pays your pension as a monthly check for as long as you live, not a lump sum. The real decision at retirement is which of a few monthly payout options to choose, and it’s largely a one-time decision. Some options pay you the most for life but stop when you die; others pay you somewhat less but keep paying a spouse after you’re gone. Which one fits depends on your marital status, your other income, and how much a surviving spouse would need to rely on the pension alone.
Teachers and school administrators, at any point in the career.
Early-career teachers: budgeting on a new salary, choosing benefits for the first time, and deciding how much to put into a 403(b) before defaulting to whatever the district suggests.
Mid-career teachers: watching years of service add up and wanting a clearer sense of what retirement timing actually does to the pension, well before it’s time to decide.
Teachers approaching retirement: weighing which PERSI payout option fits their situation, and figuring out how that decision fits with Social Security and everything else.
School administrators: principals, district staff, and other school employees covered by PERSI who have the same pension questions with a different job title.
Anyone who wants their pension, their supplemental accounts, and their budget treated as one plan instead of three separate problems handled by three different people.
The first call is thirty minutes and costs nothing.
Tell me what’s in front of you. If the fit is good, a written proposal follows. If it isn’t, I’ll tell you, and point you somewhere better.
A person to walk with you, year after year.
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