Retired state workers want COLA increases

When Gloria Gaines retired from her job as a senior secretary with Georgia’s human resources agency in 1999, she expected the state to keep what she felt was a promise that her pension would go up with inflation.

But the Employees Retirement System stopped giving cost-ofliving adjustments to thousands of former state workers such as Gaines a decade ago, and today she receives $730 a month less than she would have if she’d received the annual COLAs that she says she was owed.

The Georgia State Retirees Association, which represents state pensioners, is hoping the General Assembly will include money in the budget this session to jumpstart the COLAs that retirees had received for decades before the late 2000s.

But it may be a tough sell in a year in which Gov. Brian Kemp is promising a $3,000 teacher pay raise and 2 percent increase for current state workers, two priorities that could cost $600 million in fiscal 2020, which begins July 1.