Educators face a dilemma

Regarding “Pay bump heads to retired teachers,” (March 30): Thank you for highlighting the efforts of the Legislature to address this issue. For many years the Texas Retired Teachers Association has been speaking out for teachers and others who retired from the education profession.

Retired after 36 years of working for public schools in the Houston area, I now spend a good amount of my time advocating for the preservation of our pension system and adjusting retirement benefits to combat the effects of inflation. Your article did a good job of characterizing the dilemma that retired teachers are now facing.

Active workers, regardless of their profession, can expect increases in their paychecks to offset inflation. Retirees covered under Social Security can also rely on annual increases that are triggered by each year’s rise in inflation. However, retired public servants must rely on their pensions. In the case of our state’s retired teachers, only the Legislature can make that change.

Our state leaders, in both the House and the Senate, are showing us that this is a priority this session. An immediate and permanent increase in pay for retirees will also have a direct impact on the entire local economy. There are thousands of retired educators residing in the Greater Houston area and billions of their pension and health care dollars are spent here.

Retired teachers would prefer to be engaged citizens who can focus on voting, thanking our legislators for their service to the state and volunteering in our communities. Our legislative leaders need courage and foresight to fix this problem so we no longer must make trips to Austin to plead

for fair and modest treatment in our retirement.

Mary Widmier, Kingwood