SDUSD to Explore Retirement Incentives for ‘Gray Workforce’

The San Diego Unified School District Board of Education Tuesday night called for staffers to look into possible incentives to offer employees in an early retirement program.

The request for the study on a supplemental early retirement program by Trustees Kevin Beiser and Marne Foster comes as the district faces another major shortfall in budget planning for the 2014-15 school year.

Two weeks ago, district staff acknowledged a projected $101.35 million budget gap in the 2014-15 fiscal year, and another $53.98 million shortfall for the 2015-16 fiscal year.

"As we are looking into our next three-year budget cycle, we need to explore all of our financial options and make sure we are doing the best we can to minimize the impact to the budget," Beiser said.

Staff are to run the numbers and determine if an early retirement program would be in the district's financial best interest and what options could be available, Beiser said.

California School Employees Association Operational Support Services Chapter President Lance Wren said because of budget cuts and decreased hiring, members of his bargaining unit became a "gray workforce."

"A lot of our members would like to retire, but they don't because of medical benefits," Wren said. A supplemental early retirement program would "give the opportunity for our membership to retire,"  he said.

San Diego Unified's Jack Brandais said staff would study whether early retirement incentives, which could involve taking out annuities with the California State Teachers Retirement System, would attract enough takers to make a budget impact.

San Diego Education Association President Bill Freeman supported looking into an supplemental early retirement program.

"We have a lot of teachers that are waiting to retire, and because of the flat economy we've endured for the previous years, many of them have been holding on hoping something like that would come along before they'd retired," Freeman said.

In 2009, 1,039 district employees took advantage of an early retirement program, which financial staff estimated would save $17 million. The figure included nearly 600 teachers, counselors and nurses.

At tonight's meeting, the trustees also directed staff to explore funding options for placing automated external defibrillators at every school site in order to assist victims of cardiac arrest, and unanimously approved a proclamation to honor 10-year-old Nathan Steadman, who walked precincts to campaign for voter-approved Proposition 30 last year.

-City News Service