In the Alabama Legislature, it’s culture wars first, retirees second

  As lawmakers locked in $12 billion in spending late in the recently-concluded legislative session, they discovered education retirees.

  These are the teachers and support staff who spent 20 or 30 years or more educating you and your children. They ensured the kids in their charge were fed, sheltered, and taught as best as local resources allowed.

  They haven’t seen a cost-of-living increase in their benefits since 2007.

Craig Ford: You get what you pay for

  State lawmakers will return to Montgomery on Tuesday, February 4th, and education will be one of the primary issues they will be taking on.

  Lawmakers expect an increase in both the education and general fund budgets for the coming year, and that means more resources available to address the issues facing our public schools.

Craig Ford: A good solution to the Tier 2 retirement system and Alabama’s teacher shortage

  Earlier this year I wrote about the teacher shortage in Alabama and a proposed bill from Rep. Alan Baker (R-Brewton) that would help address the issue by fixing the problems state leaders created in our teacher retirement system back in 2012.

  The economic recession that began in 2008 had severely hurt the Retirement Systems of Alabama’s investments. The slowness of the recovery made things worse, and the state was looking at a situation where, in the long run, the government wouldn’t have the money to pay education and state employee retirees the benefits they had earned.

  Lawmakers rushed through a plan to create a new tier of retirement for any employees hired after 2013 (those hired before 2013 are still considered Tier 1 and will be paid the benefits they were promised at the time they were hired). This new retirement tier, called Tier 2, pays fewer benefits, raises the age of retirement, and takes a “use it or lose it” approach to sick leave days.

Craig Ford: Education and state retirees also deserve a pay raise

  Sometimes I feel like a broken record, but here we are once again. Another year, another budget, and another failure to provide our retirees with a cost-of-living pay raise.

  It’s becoming a disturbing tradition that every year I have to write about our legislature’s failure to treat our retirees with the respect they deserve. But for some reason, our state representatives and senators think that retirees only deserve the occasional, one-time bonus payments rather than a permanent cost-of-living pay increase.