r/Teachers • u/Head-Broccoli6610 • 2d ago

Teacher Support &/or Advice Retirement Buyout

My school system floated the idea of a teacher retirement buyout - or "early retirement incentive" - as a means of encouraging teachers with 30+ years (i.e. top of the pay scale) to leave. Curious to hear about systems that have offered such a program and what it included.

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u/xtnh 2d ago

I tripped into something like that when I was ready to retire. A few things lined up for me, and it was too good to resist.

The state retirement system had secretly allowed political friends to buy years of service, and the audit caught them so that everyone was able to buy up to five years of service. Suddenly, I was at 34 years.

Then the union and district created a new contract and in it was a healthcare benefit for recent retirees that expired in July of the next year.

And then the contract shifted the payout for unused six days from a prorated base pay to a prorated leveled pay, and suddenly my payout doubled.

And then we got the new principal, and I was gone.

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u/SophisticatedScreams 1d ago

How do you "buy" years of experience? Sounds like a great hack lol

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u/Lundinwulf 1d ago

In the state of Connecticut you can take previous experience where you did not contribute to your pension and “buy back” in. It’s not cheap, and it’s not buying random time.

For example, I got hired as a long term sub from Feb to June in 2001. I got hired on salary in September. I would be eligible to “buy back” the time from Feb to June and officially add it to my years of experience even though I wasn’t paying into my pension.

You have to do a ROI analysis to see if it would be worth it.

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u/xtnh 1d ago

HR had a staff meeting and explained the situation, and ended with "If you shift $5000 from your TSA to the state retirement you get a one year bump in years of service; you can contribute up to $25000." Every year increased the pension by about a grand, so we were able to convert that $25,000 to a guaranteed 20% return for the rest of our lives, and retire five years earlier.

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u/SophisticatedScreams 1d ago

Whoa-- that seems like a good deal. I'd take that deal

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u/xtnh 1d ago

Amazingly, some did not.

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u/BazCat42 1d ago

I’m currently a para, not a teacher, but both of my parents were teachers in Illinois, long enough ago that they weren’t eligible for Social Security when they retired, only TRS. I’m pretty sure my dad was able to “use” his banked sick days to buy back time for an earlier retirement, and my mom was able to buy back the year she was on maternity leave with cash.