Posted 4/02/2004 06:33:00 PM by Douglas

Why are teachers retiring in droves this year in Texas? It ain't because they're underpaid, it's because teachers don't want to miss out on the decades that their spouses have paid into Social Security.

Here's how it works: The majority of Texas districts, including Amarillo and Canyon, pay into the Teachers Retirement System, not into Social Security, Guffy said. But teachers can receive Social Security - either from a previous job or a spouse's job - if they spend their last day working in a district that pays into both systems.

But Congress closed this loophole in early March, Guffy said. After July 1, teachers will have to work five years in a Social Security district instead of just one day.

Mary Lee Shumaker used the loophole when she retired from the Amarillo Independent School District, in 2003. She taught at Coronado Elementary School for 20 years.

Talk around the district then said that the loophole could be closed before the end of the 2002-03 school year, Shumaker said. She and several fellow teachers consulted their financial advisers to see whether they should retire.

"He said, 'Don't think about it twice; you need to go ahead and do it,"' Shumaker said.

Yes, Mary Lee, go ahead and do it. Eleven retirees may not be a big deal, but I've heard some schools losing as much as a third of their teachers this year. I still don't understand why TRS even allowed the loophole in the first place. The state controls every other aspect of how the schools are run, why did they allow some to chose to pay into TRS while others were paying into Social Security?

But anything people can do to keep the government from screwing them out of Social Security they've paid into their whole lives, hey, I'm all for it.