When stocks dove almost 800 points on Monday, many people were wondering whether their 401(k) was more like a $4.01(k).

But Lawrence teachers and other public employees can rest easy. Their retirement funds are safe.

Teachers defer 4 percent of their salary to the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System, or KPERS.

Those funds are guaranteed, said Kristen Basso, KPERS communications officer.

“They’re not going to lose a dime,” she said. Funds invested through KPERS are defined-benefit programs, meaning there is no risk to invest.

Basso said KPERS invested more than $3.6 million in the now-defunct investment house Lehman Brothers, but “the amounts are very, very small compared to our portfolios.”

Another $9 million invested with the troubled American Investment Group and $5 million at Merrill Lynch total less than 1 percent of KPERS $12 billion portfolio.

That’s good news for KPERS, and reassuring news to teachers and public employees who watched stocks tumble early this week.

“During these times, we just really want members to understand that their benefits are safe and guaranteed,” Basso said. “The last thing you want is an 80-year-old schoolteacher wondering if she’s going to get her retirement benefits, and we want them to understand they are.”

The crisis on Wall Street also spares the district, which is prohibited by state law from investing in the market.

“There’s not anything that would indicate there is anything we’re concerned or worried about,” said Kathy Johnson, the district’s financial officer. The district invests in guaranteed Treasury notes and certificates of deposit that are protected by banks.

“Unless the federal government doesn’t make good on anything, then there would be (no) risk,” she said.