One small step for state budget writers

The big fireworks have not begun yet in Raleigh as legislators and the governor take a slow, deliberate approach to cutting into a $3 billion-plus budget shortfall. The new Republican majority is determined to close the gap without a tax increase, and that will not be easy — or painless. Both Governor Perdue and GOP legislative leaders swear they want to protect education, but it won't be possible to balance the budget without squeezing the state's largest budget category.

Here's one simple thing the General Assembly can do: Eliminate the provisions that have allowed retired teachers to return to the classroom. These retirees are receiving generous state pensions (few taxpayers in the private sector even know what a pension is), and they get a state salary on top of the pension. When this "double-dipping" was first allowed, it made a modicum of sense, but no longer. Just a few years ago, the state was worried about a shortage of teachers. A rising school-age population and mandated reductions in class size made it seemingly certain that North Carolina would not be able to find enough teachers to fill the classrooms. So legislators allowed retirees to return to work, and double-dip.

That teacher shortage is now a distant memory. Instead, school systems are laying off teachers. When I became unemployed in 2008, I thought that if I couldn't find a private-sector job, I could always sign up to teach. But then the recession hit state revenues, and teaching jobs dried up. Since then, I know of at least two instances in which qualified new teachers were rejected in favor of retirees returning to the classroom. I'm sure there are hundreds, even thousands, of others. Allowing retirees back in the classroom makes the teaching staff older and limits opportunities for younger teachers, and that has grave implications for future staffing.

In the long term, the state should review its pensions policies. Although North Carolina does not face the pension insolvency that some other states do, its pension and retirement policies are far more generous than the private sector offers. A former Wilson police chief several years ago announced his retirement when, he said, he discovered he could earn more from his state pension than he could earn by working. State law enforcement pensions are even more generous than for regular state employees, but the entire system should be reviewed. North Carolina wants to attract and retain good workers, but it shouldn't offer benefits far more generous than those available to the taxpayers who are paying the bills.