Editorials

It's a fundamental lesson lawmakers must learn: Texas needs to keep its promises to its retired teachers.

When they authorized the Teacher Retirement System to issue a "13th check" to eligible retirees in January, lawmakers made a good start. But it doesn't go far enough. The 81st Legislature must make the TRS a priority, and authorize automatic cost-of-living increases.

"The retired teachers of this state should not have to beg and grovel to get cost-of-living increases," says state Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler. "It's a disgrace."

In 2006, the 80th Legislature increased the state contribution rate to the TRS from 6 percent to 6.58 percent of employee payroll. This, coupled with investment returns of 14.4 percent in 2007, yielded the funds necessary to make that 13th check possible. More than $732 million was paid to about 245,000 eligible retirees through these checks.

But the head of the Texas Retired Teachers Association noted it was a one-time payment.

"The 13th check is not the end-all, be-all of anything that we have to accomplish for retired education in the state," Tim Lee, executive director of the TRTA, said when he visited Tyler in November. "It's more or less a bonus. It will help us in the next year. However, it's not a permanent increase in our retirement."

Eltife points out that some retired teachers have not seen a cost-of-living increase in as many as seven years.

"We all know how much the price of things have gone up," Eltife says.

That's why it's incumbent upon the Legislature to revisit how it funds the system, he adds.

"What the state tends to do is find ways around putting its share of the money into the system," he says. "The state has changed the benefits, it has made participants or the school districts put more in it and one year they even pitted retirees against current teachers in a scheme to make them both put more in."

That's unacceptable.

"If we make a promise to these teachers we should keep that promise, and the state - not the retirees or the school districts or current teachers - should put in the additional money it needs," Eltife contends.

Teachers and school districts do contribute to the retirement system, with its $115 billion pension fund.

"And I'm not saying we should change that," Eltife says. "I'm saying we should re-examine it every two years. Let's look at the actuarial tables and determine whether the state needs to put more money in."

The state can afford it, he notes. Texas still has a surplus in the billions. It's a matter of making retired teachers a priority.

"And if we can have a governor's technology fund and a governor's enterprise fund with $400 million in them -and we continue to put money into those funds - why can't we properly fund the TRS and give our retirees a cost-of-living increase," Eltife says.

Attracting and retaining good teachers is at the heart of any real education reform.

"We all worry about getting quality teachers and about current teacher pay and about keeping those teachers in the classroom," Eltife says. "But we all know that one of the reasons teachers are willing to work for the pay they receive is the quality of the benefits. So my point is that at the least, let's make sure they have a sound retirement system that keeps up with inflation."