Early retirement turnout is low

Mike Swanson

Five Laguna Beach Unified School District teachers agreed Wednesday

to an early retirement package proposed by the school board March 25,

one fewer than Asst. Supt. Steven Keller’s April estimate to make the

plan economically feasible.

Keller said the plan, administered by Keenan and Associates, will

only take effect if the district doesn’t lose money. Four classroom

teachers and a speech and language specialist accepted the package.

“It is less than the number we had hoped for,” Keller said, “but

we’ll spend the next couple of weeks crunching the numbers. As long

as we at least break even, I expect the board to pass the package

through.”

Keller said many of the 27 teachers who qualified for early

retirement didn’t accept because of money they’ve paid into the State

Teacher Retirement System, an elaborate system that sometimes rewards

teachers staying just one more year with several hundred dollars

extra per month in retirement checks.

A bill rushed to the 80-member State Assembly April 25 by

Assemblywoman Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) included an urgency

clause that offered teachers two years of credit for retiring now,

but Assembly Republicans refused to vote. The clause would have

allowed the bill to take effect May 15, but will now be delayed until

Jan. 1, according to published reports.

“If that bill would have gone through,” Keller said, “I know we

would have had a few more interested teachers.”

Four district teachers’ layoff notices still haven’t been

rescinded due to decreased enrollment, but Keller said all four want

to stay and the district wants to keep them. Each has been with the

district less than two years.

“Any funds we add to our interim budget can go toward rescinding

those last four layoff notices,” Keller said. “We had hoped early

retirement packages might make that happen.”

Republicans reportedly objected to rushing Corbett’s bill when

several Republican-authored bills deserved similar treatment. The

vote was 44-0.

“This is the wrong bill to have this kind of fight over,” Corbett

was quoted saying. “I’ve never seen a bill so important get hung up

like this.”

Keller expects the numbers to be adequately crunched by May 13, at

the next school board meeting. Gov. Gray Davis is scheduled to

release his revised budget the following day.