HAWVER: Teacher retirement ‘complicated business’

Something interesting is happening as school districts start to consider just what to do when a sizable number of their schoolteachers retire.

That’s going to be happening over the next few years as thousands of schoolteachers reach retirement age; not too old to teach, not seeing their skills at teaching our children the important things they need to learn evaporate, but just retiring because it pencils out as the financially intelligent thing to do.

Somewhere in the back of our minds we figure if it makes more economic sense for teachers to retire than to continue teaching under current pension laws, then are those teachers smart enough to do the right thing? Would you want your kids taught by people who aren’t smart enough to look after themselves? Probably not.

It’s a complicated business this teacher retirement. About 20 years ago, when Kansas was overrun by fresh-faced graduates who had majored in education, the concept was simple. Make it possible for teachers to retire under the “rule of 85” which means when their age and length of service total 85, they can retire and get the full Kansas Public Employee Retirement System pension they’ve earned. As long as there are plenty of new teachers, those retirees — who are at the top of their pay range — retire, and districts just hire newly minted teachers at lower salaries. That works out well — or did.

Except now, there are thousands of those near-retirement schoolteachers and not many young new teachers ready to take their jobs. And, remember, if a teacher started teaching just after college graduation, say, at 23 years old, taught for 31 years, he/she would be eligible for his/her pension. That makes that teacher 54 years old and eligible for retirement checks from the state’s pension system.

There’s, of course, still plenty of tread left on that tire for a 54-year-old, but current KPERS rules encourage retirement then, and at the same time make it devilishly hard to keep teaching after retirement, when the full pension would add to income from continuing to teach. The teaching-after-retirement system in Kansas limits those returning to work in their same school district (after taking a mandatory 30 days off) to making just $20,000 a year without their pension being reduced.

That made sense years ago, but doesn’t now, when there is a severe shortage of young, cheap teachers to be hired by districts to teach Kansas kids.

Something that is just starting in Kansas now is a work-around for the problem for retiring teachers and for the school districts that need them to keep teaching. Instead of a district rehiring that relatively young retiree with proven skills and links to the community, a handful of districts are contracting for those teachers’ services.

They aren’t hiring the teachers; they are contracting with companies to provide teachers. It’s likely the same teachers who retired, but they don’t technically work for the district anymore, they work for contractors who contract with the district to provide teachers.

The result? No $20,000 a year lid on salaries for those returning teachers, no KPERS payments made on behalf of those contracted teachers, no special KPERS penalty for districts which rehire post-retirement teachers.

It works, but legislators are starting to feel just a little uneasy with the situation. Just 33 teachers are believed to be working for contractors — teaching our kids, but not working for the school district, working for labor contractors who negotiate with districts to fill teacher slots with certified, qualified teachers.

It works out for the teacher, who gets to continue teaching and receive his/her full KPERS pension, it works for the school district which needs teachers, and it works — we’re certain — for the contractor who gets a percentage of the transaction.

But it has a strangely troubling aspect to it. Not sure whether it is just untraditional, or new-fangled, or what, but it feels not-quite-right, just not quite like we’re used to doing business.

Watch this get studied by the Legislature next session, and we’ll see where it goes. …

Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report. To see about that, visit www.hawvernews.com or call (785) 267-5500.