Editor’s note: Voters have amended the Texas Constitution 517 times since 1876, and they will get the chance again Nov. 7. This is the ninth of a series of Tribune-Herald articles examining the intention and implications of the 14 amendments on the ballot.
When University High School Principal Annette Perez retired in 2004 after 24 years in Texas public education, George W. Bush was president, Rick Perry was in his second elected term as Texas governor and gas cost a little more than $2 a gallon.
More than two decades after retiring, Perez has yet to receive a cost-of-living adjustment.
She is not alone. The Texas Retired Teachers Association estimates roughly 70% of its membership retired after 2004 and also are waiting for an adjustment.
That could change if voters on Nov. 7 approve Proposition 9, an amendment to the Texas Constitution that would authorize the transfer of about $3.3 billion to the Teacher Retirement System of Texas’ trust fund to pay for a cost-of-living adjustment of between 2% and 6% for the roughly 475,000 retired Texas teachers and school employees.
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The official ballot wording for the amendment, laid out in House Joint Resolution 2, is less descriptive: “The constitutional amendment authorizing the 88th Legislature to provide a cost-of-living adjustment to certain annuitants of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.”
The working details of the amendment are in its enabling legislation, Senate Bill 10, authored by Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, which passed without opposition in both the House and Senate. The measure allows the Legislature to transfer $3.3 billion from the state’s general revenue fund to the Teacher Retirement System trust fund, provides a mechanism for future cost-of-living increases and allows a one-time benefit payment of $2,400 for the state’s 104,000 Teacher Retirement System retirees and beneficiaries 70 to 74 years old and $7,500 for the 186,000 retirees 75 and older.
The amendment will not require a tax increase to finance. If passed, the cost-of-living adjustment would take effect in January.
The cost-of-living amendment culminates years of lobbying and work by teachers’ groups, said Tim Lee, executive director of the Texas Retired Teachers Association. With a $33 billion budget surplus predicted before the 88th Legislative Session, the groups redoubled their efforts.
“It’s a big step forward,” Lee said.
He said teachers who retired before the last cost-of-living adjustment have lost an estimated 34% in purchasing power over that time. Most retired Texas teachers do not draw Social Security benefits for their teaching years in Texas. Teachers’ retirement benefits are determined by an average of their three highest-paid years. For teachers who retired several decades ago, the salary levels at which they retired are considerably lower than today’s average teaching salaries.
Perez can speak to both issues. She qualified for Social Security thanks to eight years teaching in New Jersey before coming to Texas, and her salary at retirement was approximately $70,000, lower than the current level paid high school principals. She said a longtime friend and former teaching colleague from New Jersey was earning about $98,000 after retiring with roughly as many years in teaching as Perez.
Gerald Brewer retired from Waco Independent School District in 2007 after 35 years in the district as earth science teacher, Waco High School ninth grade counselor, then assistant principal. He draws Social Security thanks to his part-time jobs with Cox Department Store, then Jos. A. Banks before its Waco store closed due to a corporate bankruptcy.
Brewer, 75, recalled his starting salary as a teacher in the 1970s was around $6,000 and, as for many of his colleagues, a second job after school hours or during the summer was needed to help pay the bills.
The Texas Retired Teachers Association estimates 75,000 retirees would receive the 6% increase, 195,000 retirees the 4% increase and 150,000 the 2% increase based on their retirement date.
Brewer falls in the group qualifying for the 4% increase, which, if Proposition 9 passes, would mean about an extra $100 in his monthly paycheck, he said. Brewer said the cost-of-living increase also would affect custodians, bus drivers and cafeteria workers and other school employees who pay into the Teacher Retirement System.
“It’s (the cost-of-living increase is) not going to be an extreme amount of money, but it’s very much needed for some people,” he said.
Perez, who said she might still be in education today if her students and colleagues were all she had to deal with, agreed.
“This is very welcome. … Hopefully it won’t be the last of it,” she said.
On Thursday, we talked about the pay, the workload, the stress, the impact of COVID. But all of that, these former teachers say, stems from a lack of respect for the profession.
