Teachers and educators from across Minnesota gathered at the Minnesota Senate Building on Tuesday, urging the state to allow teachers to retire earlier and collect pensions sooner with fewer penalties. Several educators testified before the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement in support of a bipartisan bill designed to grant teachers full access to their pension at age 60 if they’ve served 30 years, while also lowering penalties for early retirement and improving cost-of-living adjustments. “At the heart of this is the fact that we have a recruitment and retention issue here in the state of Minnesota,” said elementary school teacher and Education Minnesota president Denise Specht.
“We don’t have enough teachers to fill positions in many school districts, and we believe that having better pay and pensions is a way to attract people into the profession and keep them in the profession.”
Many teachers highlighted the state’s two-tier pension system as unfair, noting that educators hired after July 1, 1989, face stricter policies. “People that were hired after 1989 do not have the pathways and options that teachers once did,” said Specht. Two of the bill’s authors, DFL Rep.
Dan Wolgamott and DFL Sen. Heather Gustafson, emphasized the state’s teacher shortage, lack of retention, and increased workloads on current educators as a crisis. “To address this crisis, we as members of the LCPR and as duly elected legislators need to use every tool in our toolbox to attract the best educators of the profession and keep them in our schools.
One of those tools that we have here on the commission, of course, is pensions,” Wolgamott said. Teachers who testified expressed that they accepted lower salaries and additional responsibilities to work in a profession they love and support students.
Teachers testify for early retirements
In return, they hoped the state would reward their efforts with fair pensions. “With nine in 10 schools impacted by the educator shortage, every elected leader in our state should be working on a plan to fix this. Pensions are how we should address it,” testified Ryan Fiereck of St.
Francis Area Schools and Education Minnesota. The proposed bill carries an estimated cost of $220 million, and some lawmakers expressed concern about finding the funding amid a $6 billion state budget deficit. “The cost to do what needs to be done here does not fit into this budget target,” said Republican Sen.
Carla Nelson. “We are mindful of the budget, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t fund our priorities,” commented Gustafson. “This is going to take a significant structural change in our budget.”
The pension commission, made up of 14 Republican and DFL lawmakers from the House and Senate, deferred the bill after hearing testimonies and discussing the proposals.
“The process is, the House and Senate, I hope by the end of April, perhaps a little bit later than that, will come together with joined budget targets. Education Minnesota and all our beloved teachers will be a part of those conversations and we’ll figure it out,” said DFL Sen. and commission chair Nick Frentz.
Image Credits: Photo by javier trueba on Unsplash
