Gov. Kemp seeks return of retired teachers

ATLANTA — Some retired Georgia teachers could return to work and collect both a full salary and a full pension under a proposal that Gov. Brian Kemp unveiled Tuesday to bolster the state’s teacher workforce.

The Republican governor said he wants to let educators return to work if they can teach in one of the top three subject areas in which a local region’s schools most need more teachers.

“I knew we needed to strengthen our teacher pipeline,” he said.

Kemp also called for the recruitment of more teachers from the military and from historically Black colleges.

Georgia isn’t experiencing as severe a teacher shortage as some other states, boosted by a growing population and salaries that are high for the region. But Southern Regional Education Board President Stephen Pruitt said it’s still a problem in the state, particularly with declining enrollments in colleges of education.

Other states have also allowed teachers to collect pensions and keep teaching, with many also offering to pay teachers extra or help pay for their education if they agree to teach in hard-to-fill jobs. Some states, though, have avoided allowing teachers to remain in the classroom and collect their pension, seeing it as “double dipping.”

Kemp has made teachers a cornerstone of his governorship. He’s delivered teachers $3,000 of a $5,000 yearly pay raise that he has promised, and is working with the state Board of Education to pay all education employees a $1,000 bonus this year out of federal coronavirus relief money. He also wants to use betterthan-expected state revenues to restore more than half of what was cut last year from Georgia’s K-12 funding formula.

Currently, teachers can return to work and collect up to 49% of the salary they are entitled to while still collecting retirement. Under Kemp’s measure, a teacher would be able to teach at that 49% level for one year, then return to full salary.

It’s unclear how many teachers would be eligible. Teachers Retirement System Executive Director Buster Evans said a similar program only included about 500 teachers statewide about a decade ago before the state abolished it.

The measure is unlikely to become law before 2022, at the earliest, due to legislative requirements that it undergo a financial study to determine whether it would financially harm the Teachers Retirement System. Evans said it was unlikely to hurt the fund.