June 25, 2010
June 25, 2010
Number of retirements more than three times the yearly average
LANSING - Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today announced that 17,063 school employees have filed for retirement with the state's Office of Retirement Services (ORS) as a result of school employee retirement reforms. Changes to the Michigan Public School Employees' Retirement System were among the major reforms to Michigan government proposed by the governor in January, and she signed school retirement reform legislation into law on May 19.
Calculations from the State Budget Office estimate that the school retirement reforms will produce first-year savings of $515 million for school districts across Michigan.
"The number of school retirements is more than triple what we typically see in a given summer," Granholm said. "The school retirement reforms are working as we intended: helping resolve the long-term structural imbalance in the School Aid Fund so we can properly fund K-12 education and creating thousands of job opportunities for new teachers just entering the profession."
Ninety-five percent of schools across the state had employees retire. Of the 17,063 retirement applications filed, more than 10,000 came from the ranks of teachers and administrators. More than 14,000 applicants met the traditional age and service requirements.
The ORS has utilized a secured data exchange gateway to provide officials in every Michigan school district with information about the employees in their district who are retiring, including their effective retirement date. Retiring employees had to declare their retirement date as July 1, August 1 or September 1.
The ORS will be working closely with school districts throughout the summer to provide final pension information for retiring school employees. School districts were given a small number of extensions to retain selected retirees for up to one year. Of the 3,200 extensions made available statewide, school districts utilized only 1,295.
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