The Utah Legislature is playing a similar game with public education. For years, the demands and workload on educators has steadily piled up, while funding and resources remain meager. Now certain representatives propose we start pulling out aspects of retirement — one of the few remaining incentives for educators in the state.
The proposed changes, spearheaded by Sen. Daniel Liljenquist, R-Bountiful, would require teachers and other state employees to work more years before receiving full retirement benefits. They would also reduce those benefits by eliminating a 1.5 percent employer match for 401(k)s. Perhaps most damaging, proposed changes would make retirement less attractive to newcomers by cutting packages significantly for those hired after 2011.
I understand times are tough, but whittling away at our teachers’ retirement is a monumental mistake. Everyone is cutting back, some will argue, and they’re right. Most folks in Tooele County and around the nation have felt the recession one way or another, and cuts in retirement are not uncommon. But public jobs like teaching are a different matter, because compensation hasn’t been competitive even in the best of times. Utah has dwelt near the bottom of the heap on education spending for decades, and teachers can earn a better salary nearly anyplace else.
Politicians have long acknowledged teacher pay is problematic, but point to additional perks as a means to keep educators in the field and attract new ones. Aside from the robust retirement package, what’s left? Health care coverage used to be second to none, but premiums and co-pays have skyrocketed for educators while benefits have declined, leaving current coverage average at best. Trainings and tuition reimbursement? Most of those programs are indefinite casualties of the recession.
What remains is Utah’s retirement system, which still ranks among the best in the nation. That status serves as a compelling incentive for teachers to remain in the career they love, despite other difficulties. Pull it out from under them and there’s really nothing in the realms of logic to keep them.
As a state, we’ve counted for too long on the innate goodness of our best educators. Maybe I’m a little biased, but as a whole teachers are among the most dedicated and selfless professionals I’ve had privilege to associate with. They love their jobs. They work long hours, often after the school day ends. They spend from their own pockets for needed resources to see students succeed.
But there is a limit to what even our most dedicated teachers will labor under. To some, it was the irrational demands of No Child Left Behind, or similar top-down “innovations.” For others, the current and impending pay cuts have sent them to find employment they can support a family on. Cutting retirement benefits simultaneously pulls out a needed incentive and piles on another burden.
If lawmakers want to avoid a teacher exodus in coming years, they’d best find savings from a source that isn’t already wrung dry. Will reductions in retirement be the final piece that topples the whole fragile Utah teaching pool? I, for one, suggest we don’t find out.
Matt Rowley is a teacher at Copper Canyon Elementary who lives in Tooele. He can be reached at matrowl@yahoo.com.
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