9,500 retired teachers to get lump sum payment

Thousands of retired Georgia teachers or their beneficiaries will receive a lump sum of retirement payments they should have been receiving all along from the Teachers Retirement System of Georgia.

The agreement between TRS Georgia and the lead plaintiffs, Larrie Grant Plymel and Connie D. Monroe, brings the 5-year-old class-action lawsuit to a close, following a hearing Monday in Fulton County Superior Court.

How much the retirees or their beneficiaries will receive is unclear.

It could take 60 days to calculate the amount each person will receive.

The total class of plaintiffs numbers about 15,000, but about 5,500 of them were already paid last year under an earlier order of the court.

“We’re gratified that the ruling will result in a substantial recovery for the vast majority of class members,” said David Forehand, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs.

At the crux of the lawsuit is the contention that TRS Georgia, which has about $42 billion in retirement funds, did not correctly calculate retirement benefits.

Because of those miscalculations, the plaintiffs argued, some retirees were underpaid for years.

TRS Georgia — which has two other similar cases still pending — will give payouts to those school employees who retired between Aug. 1, 1983, and Feb. 3, 2003.

Those teachers will be compensated for underpayments — plus interest — going back to April 1998 to the date of the payout later this year. They also will receive future increases going forward.

The lump sum payments start from April 1998 because the Plymel and Monroe lawsuit was filed in 2004. The statute of limitations only allows the payment start date to go back six years.