Superintendents joined elected officials in Montgomery this week to speak in favor of a bill that would improve retirement benefits for Alabama teachers.

Limestone County Schools Superintendent Tom Sisk said House Bill 77 is of particular importance because it could once again make Alabama comparable to surrounding states. As it stands, he said, current teachers feel unappreciated or undervalued, they’re retiring or resigning, and would-be teachers are choosing other fields of work or other states in which to work.

“Teaching as a profession has never been one bragged about for high salaries. Most people go in knowing you won’t get rich, but (Alabama) will take care of you when you retire,” Sisk said. “For generations of teachers, that’s the way it’s been. Our benefits package has been what we relied on to be competitive with surrounding states that pay better than we do.”

That package included being eligible for retirement at age 60 with 10 years of service in Alabama education or any age with 25 years of service. Sisk said a teacher joining Alabama’s education workforce in their early to mid-20s could feasibly retire by age 50 and draw pensions for the rest of their life.

However, Alabama adjusted that retirement package to include a Tier II plan. This plan made it so employees hired after Jan. 1, 2013, could not retire before age 60, regardless of how long they had been employed in Alabama education.

The new plan also did away with employees’ opportunity to trade sick leave for additional service time. In other words, employees were at one time allowed to trade 180 days of sick leave for one year of service time, allowing them to retire one year sooner. Under Tier II, this option was taken away, Sisk said.

“It was a bad deal,” he said. “These are college-educated men and women, and the next thing you know, we’re seeing a trend in how many graduates are entering education.”

Tier III

Sisk said he hopes HB77’s creation of a Tier III plan will reverse that trend. Limestone County alone has seen more than 70 employees resign or retire this year, and that number will only increase before the school year ends.

Statewide, employees under the Tier I plan are getting older, many eligible to retire at any point, and the number entering college with plans to teach in Alabama cannot meet the need that retirements and resignations leave behind.

Sisk hopes Tier III will encourage more students to go to college for education and stay in Alabama after graduation. The plan will combine parts of Tiers I and II by bringing back the sick leave conversion option and allowing retirement after 30 years of service in education.

If HB77 is passed, Tier III would be open for any employee hired after Jan. 1, 2013, except for Tier II employees who choose on or before June 1, 2021, to stick with the Tier II plan.

“We need to continue to attract great teachers,” Sisk said. “If you look across North Alabama, you have a lot of A’s and B’s in the school system. This is an area that’s attracting businesses that are choosing where they are going to move families to. You’re going to need a qualified (education) workforce.”

He said anything the government can do to improve benefits for teachers will help school districts in Alabama recruit and keep teachers. He was one of “seven or eight” superintendents who went to Montgomery last week to advocate for this bill and discuss other measures to improve Alabama education, he said, and he’ll be going back this Thursday to continue advocating.