DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 5:47 p.m. November 19, 2008
Retired teachers to keep automatic cost-of-living increases
Huge outpouring of protest had greeted governor’s proposal to remove automatic raises
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A move to eliminate automatic cost-of-living increases for retired educators was quickly shot down Wednesday by the Teacher Retirement System Board.
The unanimous defeat of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s plan to end the automatic raises provided fresh evidence that taking on teachers and retired educators is usually a losing bet for Georgia politicians.
Curtis Compton / ccompton@ajc.com
Teachers and retirees packed the offices of the Teachers Retirement System on Wednesday.
Six years ago, the state’s 100,000 teachers helped oust Gov. Roy Barnes after educators said he showed disrespect for their profession. This time they accused the man who beat Barnes, Perdue, of betraying their support by eliminating the automatic pension COLAs.
Jeff Hubbard, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, said teachers and retired educators from across the state banded together to defeat the COLA plan.
“Through collective action, we can move mountains, whether it’s in a gubernatorial race or whether it’s protecting the pensions we’ve paid for,” Hubbard said after the vote.
Administration officials tried to pull back the plan at the last minute Wednesday, citing an attorney general’s office assessment that the rule change might not hold up in court. But the board also got serious pressure from teachers and retired educators, who lobbied en masse for two months to defeat the change.
Under the proposal, the teacher retirement board would have voted each year on whether to fund COLAs. Since 1969, the twice-annual 1.5 percent increases have been automatic.
The Teacher Retirement System and the Georgia Employee Retirement System pay pensions to about 115,000 former teachers, professors, school employees and state workers. About 380,000 more Georgians are either paying into the plan or have in the past, but are not yet collecting a pension.
The Perdue administration wanted the change to give the board more flexibility in managing the $41 billion teacher fund. Supporters argued that the board needs to be able to react if the fund runs into trouble. The teacher and state retirement systems have lost $11 billion in value since July 1 because of the stock market collapse.
State government and local school districts - both funded by Georgia taxpayers - have a big stake in the system. Next year they will contribute about $1 billion to the retirement fund.
Opposition mounted quickly to the Perdue proposal after it was raised a few months ago.
The teacher retirement system received more than 20,000 letters and emails expressing opposition.
On Wednesday, more than 100 teachers and retired educators crowded Georgia Teacher Retirement System offices waiting for the vote.
Joining them was House Speaker Pro-Tem Mark Burkhalter (R-Johns Creek), who came to lend his support to the educators. Steve Jackson, 62, a retired Villa Rica social studies teacher, held a sign at the entrance of the Retirement System Offices. It read “betrayal” and “teachers never forget.”
“We feel like Sonny (Perdue) wouldn’t be governor without the teachers support,” Jackson said. “He promised things to the teachers. We feel very betrayed.”
Dan Ebersole, a board member and director of the Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services, made a move to withdraw the proposal. He later said the attorney general’s office had advised officials that the state would likely lose any lawsuit brought against it over the COLAs. Educators paid extra into the system to ensure that they would get automatic COLAs, and eliminating them would break an “implied contract” with teachers.
Ebersole’s motion was ruled to be out of order. So the board then voted unanimously to retain the current system of automatic increases. That brought a cheer from the teachers and retired educators in attendance, including those in the halls.
Crystal Jackson, a South Cobb High School counselor and 35-year educator, was elated by the vote.
“I am very very pleased,” she said with a bright smile. “I’m not retired yet, but I am trying to make sure things are in place that were promised to me 35 years ago.”
Bert Brantley, the governor’s spokesman, said the administration supported the board’s decision not to go forward with the change because of potential legal problems.
But he defended Perdue’s position, saying the governor was trying to help secure the long-term future of the retirement fund.
“This is a commitment that is only going to grow over time,” Brantley said, as more and more teachers retire. “What a COLA like this does is it doesn’t give the state the ability to manage the amount of tax money going into the fund.”
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