Lawmakers stop teacher pension overhaul

The bill aimed to implement a hybrid retirement plan for teachers hired after 2016, part traditional pension and part 401(k).

Teacher advocacy groups argued that the current pension system is well-run. They feared that reduced contributions from future teachers would erode its solvency.

“We are recognized as one of the top five teachers retirement systems in the country,” Bill Sloan, executive director of the 25,000-member Georgia Retired Educators Association, told the lawmakers. “Why would you mess with something that’s great? … What’s being proposed is terrible.”

Michael O’Sullivan, state director of StudentsFirst, a group that supports charter schools and other alternative teacher career tracks such as Teach for America, told lawmakers that the current retirement system delivers the greatest benefits to only those teachers who stay in their jobs a long time. The group wants to recruit teachers from the top of their college classes and hopes to elevate the status of the profession. That would be easier if the job paid more, especially at the entry level.

“There are a lot of great teachers who know going in that they’re not going to spend a lifetime in the classroom, and we need to have something for them,” he said.

Hill said he didn’t necessarily support his own bill, especially without raising teacher pay. He said he merely wanted to know what its financial impact might be before moving the legislation forward.