Early Retirement Unfair System

To The Sentinel:
All our teachers and staff in the area, be it Keene or Monadnock, deserve a fair wage, which includes a raise in pay.

It is not about the wages it is about the unfair benefits being demanded. The Keene and Monadnock teachers are the only public employees in our area that receive the early retirement benefit - $12 million (over seven years).

These ex-teachers will never enter a classroom, and have absolutely no obligation to their district for the full seven years they receive early retirement from the local taxpayer. They could live in Miami or Seattle. Once teacher early retirement is going at full tilt there will be 70 Keene ex-teachers and 35 Monadnock ex-teachers (105 total) receiving early retirement. Monadnock taxpayers will pay $4 million and Keene taxpayers will pay $8 million every seven years (no inflation included).

Teacher early retirement is from local property taxes, and has absolutely nothing to do with our state of New Hampshire retirement system (which by the way, we will add an additional 57 percent for each teacher in our districts this year - another story).

Nor is this a one-time thing - there will always be 105 early retired teachers (Keene adds 10 teachers per year, Monadnock adds five teachers per year, as older teachers switch to normal state retirement).

The details of teacher early retirement are in the Keene proposed contract; (you can read it on the Web - at the school site); and your current long-range obligation (what the taxpayers already owe on teacher early retirement) is in your school audit - under long-term obligations.

Adding to the above is the refusal to switch health insurance carriers (Keene is going to study it - Monadnock has dueling unfair labor practice cases pending). Meanwhile, the taxpayers lose. Monadnock will loose about $1 million (assistant business manager's number) and as Keene is about 133 percent of Monadnock, the Keene taxpayers will lose about $1.3 million in health insurance premiums each year.

While the early retirement is building for seven years, Monadnock taxpayers will be out an additional $7 million in health insurance savings - Keene taxpayers will be out an additional $9 million in that timeframe.

Well, fellow local taxpayers, teacher early retirement and lack of action on the teachers part on health insurance carrier will cost us $28 million dollars every seven years.

And not one single penny of that $28 million will go the children in our districts. Keene voters, you get the first at-bat.