Schools to give incentives for early retirement

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough School District Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday to offer financial incentives it hopes will prod employees to retire early.

Ken Forrest, the district’s assistant superintendent for administration and business services, said the retirement incentive would be offered to employees 45 years or older as of Wednesday night who have 15 years of service, “unless they are in an administrative capacity, in which case it would be 10 years of service.”

That adds up to 424 district employees. Forrest said the employees would have a range of options for how to receive the payment and could pass some of it on to survivors if they die.

“It’s important to point out that the (incentive) does not in any way affect the employee’s retirement (benefits),” Forrest said.

Employees will have from Thursday until Feb. 11 to sign up and then a week from the close date to change their minds.

“On June 30, employees who participate in this would be required to retire from this school district,” Forrest said. “They would be eligible to go elsewhere and work and accrue additional retirement credit.”

The money for the incentives comes from $2.3 million in savings made to the budget this year, but also from $2.26 million the district received from the federal government’s American Recovery and Re-investment Act.

“If the retirement incentive is successful, … we are removing the highest paid employees and we are using one-time funds to do that,” Forrest said.

The early retirement plan is one way that the district is trying to address what it has identified as a structural deficit. Forrest has noted in presentations the past months that over the next two years the district will be $7 million short if it keeps doing what it’s been doing.

That translates to roughly 200 jobs that would have to be cut. But if the district can cut higher-wage employees, Forrest said, it can reduce the number of positions eliminated by half.

“Instead of having to remove 200 positions we would be well under 100 positions over the next two years,” Forrest said. “We’ll still have to raise class size.”

But since the number of positions eliminated will be half as great, the increase in class size would also be half as steep.

District staff also allayed school board fears of possible grievances and administrative actions coming out of the deal by noting that the various unions that represent district employees had signed off on the plan.

“We believe that this is a good program for the district, a good opportunity for the employees and a good investment of the money we have available for a one-time use,” Forrest said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.