City school system needs more than 300 teachers to move forward with early retirement plan
The Baltimore city school system needs 315 teachers in order to execute a plan to offer an early retirement incentives to educators with more than 10 years experience.
According to the latest update from the school system's website, 36 teachers have committed to taking the buyout, announced last month as a cost-saving measure that could save the district between $5 million and $10 million next year.
By offering teachers 75 percent of their current salaries, which would be dispensed into an investment account over a five-year-period, the district hoped that it could induce up to 750 early retirements and resignations. If 350 teachers don't 't take the plan, the deal will be called off.
With a month until the April 15 deadline for teachers to take the buyout, it seems that minimum may be hard to come by.
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
I know a couple of teachers at my school planning on taking it, and I heard there are a number of meetings explaining the buyout that are coming out - a couple of the meetings were all full already, while a copule others were filling fast. I wonder if they're just not "official" yet and that many more are planning on doing it.
That being said, I don't think it's a very attractive offer, especially compared to other teacher buyouts I've heard about, and I doubt if it enticed anyone who wasn't already thinking of retiring.
Posted by: epiph | March 16, 2011 9:39 PM
I agree with epiph. The offer was not all that great. I looked at it and decided against. Not enough to make up the difference for my staying until regular retirement. If they truly wanted many teachers to take this, the city should have offered buy ups to real retirement levels.
Posted by: vetern teacher | March 17, 2011 6:29 AM
Make it 5 years of service and you've got me!!!
Posted by: mccutch25 | March 17, 2011 1:47 PM
This is very interesting to watch from the west coast. Not sure how they will save that amount since they will have to hire more and pay retired. I have not heard of such deals out here at this time ....but it does seem that it would have to be a lot sweeter than it is to take it. I haven't heard the specifics like insurance coverage or how it effects the total retirement in the long run. Good luck to all the teachers with tough decisions this year!
Posted by: mm | March 18, 2011 6:48 PM
I went to the informational meeting last night. It quickly became clear that this is not enough of an enticement for me. As vt mentioned, if they had offered some sort of "buy up", I would have considered it. Instead, I'll stick around for a little while until I qualify for early retirement.
Posted by: avalon | March 19, 2011 9:21 AM
What a person would get with this plan would go almost entirely to pay for health insurance. Not enticing to me at all. Show us a real buy-out plan. Just because the union and AAA SAY it is a good plan does NOT make it so.
Posted by: elisabeth | March 19, 2011 8:25 PM
If BCPSS puts 75% of current salaries into a 403b plan, wouldn't that make the deal significantly sweeter to younger teachers with 10 years of service? (More time for interest to compound.) Also, let's say a 10 yr veteran who joined BCPSS directly out of college and is now 33 wanted to take this deal. Are they allowed to work as teachers full-time in other districts?
Posted by: city teacher | March 20, 2011 10:26 PM