With California facing a massive teacher shortage, CTA is sponsoring or backing several legislative measures designed to provide new incentives for experienced teachers to remain in the profession and for fully qualified new teachers to enter it.
All of the measures would be funded by surpluses in the State Teachers' Retirement System (STRS). One measure would cover all of the Three R's: rewarding current retirees for their lifelong dedication to students; retaining senior teachers who might otherwise leave the profession; and recruiting and keeping new teachers in the classroom.
AB 2201, the CTA-sponsored Teachers' Pension Equity Act by Assembly Member Mike Honda (D-San Jose), would bring retirement benefits offered by STRS more in line with those offered by the Public Employees Retirement System. It would boost benefits affecting more than 560,000 active and retired STRS members.
Among its major benefits would be a 2 percent annual service factor for STRS members who retire at 55. That would be worth as much as $516 per month to someone who retires after the bill's enactment.
The measure would also provide an 80 percent purchasing power guarantee, aiming to ensure that the value of any STRS member's pension payment would never lose more than 20 percent of its power to inflation.
Under the bill, STRS members' pensions would be calculated upon their single highest year of compensation. Under current law, teachers' payments are figured on the basis of the average of their three highest years. STRS would also be able to compound the annual 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) paid to retirees. Under current law, members receive a simple COLA.
AB 2201 is one of four retirement bills that recently won the approval of the Assembly's Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security (PER&SS) Committee [see chart this page]. All have now moved to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for further consideration.