2023 Indiana Retired Teachers Legisative update
April 29, 2023
The Indiana General Assembly has adopted a budget for the next two years, that unlike previous years, does not contain a 13th check or COLA for retired educators or public employees. It is little consolation that HB 1001 directs the Indiana Public Retirement System (INPRS) to study and report back to the legislature “scenarios to increase the contribution rate for supplemental reserve accounts under IC 5-10.2-12 in order to fund a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) at increments of one-half of one percent (0.5%) each year.” While it is encouraging that the legislature is considering future regular COLAs, it is disappointing that retired educators, especially those with the lowest monthly pensions, will receive no pension enhancement during this time of high inflation and rising costs.
Additionally, nearly $3 Billion was appropriated to buy down the unfunded liability for the Pre-’96 Teacher’s Retirement fund.
Please continue to visit the IRTA website over the coming weeks for additional information.
Indiana Retired Teachers Association | 888.454.9333
The Indiana General Assembly has adopted a budget for the next two years, that unlike previous years, does not contain a 13th check or COLA for retired educators or public employees. It is little consolation that HB 1001 directs the Indiana Public Retirement System (INPRS) to study and report back to the legislature “scenarios to increase the contribution rate for supplemental reserve accounts under IC 5-10.2-12 in order to fund a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) at increments of one-half of one percent (0.5%) each year.” While it is encouraging that the legislature is considering future regular COLAs, it is disappointing that retired educators, especially those with the lowest monthly pensions, will receive no pension enhancement during this time of high inflation and rising costs.
Additionally, nearly $3 Billion was appropriated to buy down the unfunded liability for the Pre-’96 Teacher’s Retirement fund.
Please continue to visit the IRTA website over the coming weeks for additional information.
Indiana Retired Teachers Association | 888.454.9333
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Laura Penman Speaks to BARTA members
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Laura Penman, Executive Director of IRTA, spoke to BARTA members at the spring meeting on May 10,2022. She met teachers at Four Seasons for the first general meeting in two years. She introduced herself to the membership and gave a brief background of her educational experience. She invited BARTA members to contact her with any questions they might have about IRTA.
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January 9, 2022
Vic's Statehouse Notes
Vic’s Statehouse Notes and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma!
Dear Friends,
In a stunning break with Hoosier tradition, House Bill 1182 would change school boards from non-partisan to partisan. It’s time to contact your legislators before the bill is heard on Tuesday to express your strong opposition to this damaging change to our public schools.
Making school boards partisan is a bad idea. It would further divide our state into partisan camps and create partisan controversies and ill-will in the boards running public schools that serve all children.
This proposal comes from the same Republican party that in 2017 and again in 2019 passed bills to appoint rather than elect the State Superintendent, an elective office for 166 years, saying at the time that politics should be taken out of K-12 education.
How quickly they forget.
What bad consequences would this change bring?
Share these concerns with legislators:
Who Should You Contact by Tuesday January 11, 2022 at 8:30 AM?
Contact your State Senator and State Representative to let them know the current law on non-partisan school boards is the best policy and should be maintained. More partisanship is the wrong way to go for our K-12 students.
Then contact members of the House Elections and Apportionment Committee who will hear House Bill 1182 on January 11, 2022 starting at 8:30 a.m. in Room 156C of the Statehouse. The committee members and their email addresses are:
Republicans
Rep. Timothy Wesco, Chair
Rep. Alan Morrison
Rep. Robert Cherry
Rep. Ethan Manning
Rep. Timothy O’Brien
Rep. Zach Payne
Rep. Craig Snow
Rep. Ed Soliday
Rep. Ann Vermillion
Democrats
Rep. Tonya Pfaff
Rep. Sue Errington
Rep. Matt Pierce
Rep. Cherrish Pryor
You can copy the list below and paste it into the “to” field of your email.
h53@in.gov; h34@in.gov; h23@in.gov; h42@in.gov; h66@in.gov; h43@in.gov; h61@in.gov; h94@in.gov; h18@in.gov; h4@in.gov; h78@in.gov; h31@in.gov; h21@in.gov
Thank you for your active support of public education in Indiana!
Best wishes,
Vic Smith vic790@aol.com
Vic’s Statehouse Notes and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma!
ICPE has worked since 2011 to promote public education in the Statehouse and oppose the privatization of schools. We need your membership to help support ICPE lobbying efforts. We need all ICPE members to renew their membership if you have not done so.
Our lobbyist Joel Hand represented ICPE extremely well during the 2021 session. We need your memberships and your support to continue his work in 2022. We welcome additional members and additional donations. We need your help and the help of your colleagues who support public education! Please pass the word!
Click the button below to visit ICPE’s website at www.indianacoalitionforpubliced.org for membership and renewal information and for full information on ICPE efforts on behalf of public education. Thanks!
Vic's Statehouse Notes
Vic’s Statehouse Notes and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma!
Dear Friends,
In a stunning break with Hoosier tradition, House Bill 1182 would change school boards from non-partisan to partisan. It’s time to contact your legislators before the bill is heard on Tuesday to express your strong opposition to this damaging change to our public schools.
Making school boards partisan is a bad idea. It would further divide our state into partisan camps and create partisan controversies and ill-will in the boards running public schools that serve all children.
This proposal comes from the same Republican party that in 2017 and again in 2019 passed bills to appoint rather than elect the State Superintendent, an elective office for 166 years, saying at the time that politics should be taken out of K-12 education.
How quickly they forget.
What bad consequences would this change bring?
Share these concerns with legislators:
- Changing to partisan school boards will make the teacher shortage even worse. This change will be so repulsive to many non-partisan teachers, it could be their last straw to consider leaving the state or the profession. Teachers in training are deciding whether to stay in Indiana or to teach in surrounding states. Knowing that public schools are run by partisan school boards will discourage young teachers from beginning their career in Indiana.
- Many highly qualified school board candidates would run in a non-partisan election but would not get involved if they must run in a partisan election as members of a party.
- Political bosses who are not on the school board could control school board actions when school board members know that they owe their board seat to party politicians.
- Party slates would soon become part of every election, allowing state and local political bosses to control who gets to run for school board.
- The partisan majority on the school board would soon establish a partisan test for selecting a superintendent.
- A partisan superintendent may set up partisan tests for hiring administrative staff members or even teachers in the district.
- Since the legislature voted eight years ago to remove the requirement that superintendents must earn a superintendent’s license, a politically partisan school board could hire any politically connected individual to be the superintendent, whether or not the individual was qualified based on knowledge of schools.
- A regular dose of partisan arguments in local school board meetings will soon sour local communities on the very concept of public education.
- A change to partisan school boards would allow the party in power to control school board reactions to legislation in the General Assembly as the supermajority year by year brings bills which lead to their ultimate goal of universal vouchers: to end public education and educate all students in a marketplace of private schools.
- This proposal reverts to our history prior to the 1959 school consolidation reform law when some township trustees who ran the schools used political tests for hiring teachers.
Who Should You Contact by Tuesday January 11, 2022 at 8:30 AM?
Contact your State Senator and State Representative to let them know the current law on non-partisan school boards is the best policy and should be maintained. More partisanship is the wrong way to go for our K-12 students.
Then contact members of the House Elections and Apportionment Committee who will hear House Bill 1182 on January 11, 2022 starting at 8:30 a.m. in Room 156C of the Statehouse. The committee members and their email addresses are:
Republicans
Rep. Timothy Wesco, Chair
Rep. Alan Morrison
Rep. Robert Cherry
Rep. Ethan Manning
Rep. Timothy O’Brien
Rep. Zach Payne
Rep. Craig Snow
Rep. Ed Soliday
Rep. Ann Vermillion
Democrats
Rep. Tonya Pfaff
Rep. Sue Errington
Rep. Matt Pierce
Rep. Cherrish Pryor
You can copy the list below and paste it into the “to” field of your email.
h53@in.gov; h34@in.gov; h23@in.gov; h42@in.gov; h66@in.gov; h43@in.gov; h61@in.gov; h94@in.gov; h18@in.gov; h4@in.gov; h78@in.gov; h31@in.gov; h21@in.gov
Thank you for your active support of public education in Indiana!
Best wishes,
Vic Smith vic790@aol.com
Vic’s Statehouse Notes and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma!
ICPE has worked since 2011 to promote public education in the Statehouse and oppose the privatization of schools. We need your membership to help support ICPE lobbying efforts. We need all ICPE members to renew their membership if you have not done so.
Our lobbyist Joel Hand represented ICPE extremely well during the 2021 session. We need your memberships and your support to continue his work in 2022. We welcome additional members and additional donations. We need your help and the help of your colleagues who support public education! Please pass the word!
Click the button below to visit ICPE’s website at www.indianacoalitionforpubliced.org for membership and renewal information and for full information on ICPE efforts on behalf of public education. Thanks!
2019 General Assembly Passes 13th check for retired teachers
From Tom Mellish, Exec Director IRTA
You did it! Thank you! The 13th Check is in the budget for the next two years. Thank you for contacting your legislators.
They also agreed to take the $150 million for the Post ’96 Teacher Retirement Fund out of the Budget Surplus, not the Pension Stabilization Fund (PSF). This enables school corporations to lower their contribution rate to the Post ’96 Teacher Retirement Fund for active teachers and to use that difference, we hope, for teacher salaries. Taking the money from the PSF would have pushed the unfunded liability for the Pre ’96 Teacher Retirement Fund out a few more years.
The full House stood behind both these issues in Conference Committee and the Senate was persuaded to support both issues. You can thank your representative for his or her continued support and advocacy for the “13th Check”.
On the Senate side, all the Democrats and these Republican senators, Alting, Becker, Bohacek, Crane, Garten, Grooms, Leising, Niemeyer, Ruckelshaus, and Tomes, voted for Sen. Niezgodski’s amendment to place the 13th Check back into the budget. They also spoke up during their caucus sessions to support the 13th Check.
You did it! Thank you! The 13th Check is in the budget for the next two years. Thank you for contacting your legislators.
They also agreed to take the $150 million for the Post ’96 Teacher Retirement Fund out of the Budget Surplus, not the Pension Stabilization Fund (PSF). This enables school corporations to lower their contribution rate to the Post ’96 Teacher Retirement Fund for active teachers and to use that difference, we hope, for teacher salaries. Taking the money from the PSF would have pushed the unfunded liability for the Pre ’96 Teacher Retirement Fund out a few more years.
The full House stood behind both these issues in Conference Committee and the Senate was persuaded to support both issues. You can thank your representative for his or her continued support and advocacy for the “13th Check”.
On the Senate side, all the Democrats and these Republican senators, Alting, Becker, Bohacek, Crane, Garten, Grooms, Leising, Niemeyer, Ruckelshaus, and Tomes, voted for Sen. Niezgodski’s amendment to place the 13th Check back into the budget. They also spoke up during their caucus sessions to support the 13th Check.
BARTA member Joyce Heckman (center left) meets with other retired teachers from Area 7.
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Chief IRTA lobbyist Steve Beebe (right) works to bring about legislation to favor IRTA interests.
At the annual IRTA legislative brunch at the state capital, more than 200 retired teachers, representatives of their associations, met together and lobbied for passage of education and public pension bills before the legislature. (Left) Tom Mellish, Executive Director of IRTA, discusses the progress of the 13th check legislation with Joyce Heckman. |
LOBBYING AT THE STATE LEGISLATURE: At the IRTA Legislative Brunch, with other representatives from IRTA Area 7, BARTA member Joyce Heckman lobbied for the reinstatement of the "13th check" for retired public employees into HB 1001, the Budget Bill. Though supported in the House, the amendment for inclusion of the stipend into the budget bill met opposition in the Senate. Eventually 10 Republican senators joined with the Democrats to push through the bill. It was signed into law by the Governor April 29.
PUBLIC EMPLOYEES PENSION AND SCHOOL FUNDING DETAILS OF HB1001: Appropriates $150,000,000 from the state general fund to the 1996 account of the teachers retirement fund of the Indiana public retirement system (INPRS). Specifies that the board of trustees of the INPRS is to reduce the employer contribution rate. Requires the governing body of each school corporation after July 1, 2019, and before October 1, 2019, to hold a public meeting to determine: (1) the dollar amount of the reduction in the school corporation's employer contribution rate; and (2) the actions the governing body of the school corporation intends to take with that amount. Provides for thirteenth checks in 2019 and 2020 for certain members of the: (1) Indiana state teachers' retirement fund; (2) public employees' retirement fund; (3) state excise police, gaming agent, gaming control officer, and conservation enforcement officers' retirement plan; (4) state police pre-1987 benefit system; and (5) state police 1987 benefit system. Urges the legislative council to assign to the appropriate interim study committee the topic of the complexity index used in funding K-12.
For more details about this bill, go to http://iga.in.gov/legislative/2019/bills/house/1001#document-a47201d3 .
PUBLIC EMPLOYEES PENSION AND SCHOOL FUNDING DETAILS OF HB1001: Appropriates $150,000,000 from the state general fund to the 1996 account of the teachers retirement fund of the Indiana public retirement system (INPRS). Specifies that the board of trustees of the INPRS is to reduce the employer contribution rate. Requires the governing body of each school corporation after July 1, 2019, and before October 1, 2019, to hold a public meeting to determine: (1) the dollar amount of the reduction in the school corporation's employer contribution rate; and (2) the actions the governing body of the school corporation intends to take with that amount. Provides for thirteenth checks in 2019 and 2020 for certain members of the: (1) Indiana state teachers' retirement fund; (2) public employees' retirement fund; (3) state excise police, gaming agent, gaming control officer, and conservation enforcement officers' retirement plan; (4) state police pre-1987 benefit system; and (5) state police 1987 benefit system. Urges the legislative council to assign to the appropriate interim study committee the topic of the complexity index used in funding K-12.
For more details about this bill, go to http://iga.in.gov/legislative/2019/bills/house/1001#document-a47201d3 .
BARTA Supports Red for Ed Day
Teachers and retired Educators from across the State met at the State House on the first day of the new Indiana legislative session. They rallied inside the Statehouse as well as outside to ask the legislators for additional educational funding. Teachers met with individual legislators throughout the day to emphasize the need for more funding. Pictures below show the huge numbers of educators present for the rally.
BARTA members show their support of Red for Ed
Do you Know someone who needs a Helping hand?
A HAND UP program aids retired teachers
Retired teachers, especially those very elderly recipients of particularly small pensions, may find meeting the cost of unexpected expenses quite difficult. A Hand Up program provides $1000 grants to IRTA members who are facing short term financial emergencies. Revealing just how important this program is, during its first nine months of life, A Hand Up awarded $3500 in four grants to our members. For more information and applications go to https://www.retiredteachers.org/foundation .
active teacher grant is newest
foundation program
IRTF's newest program received more than 375 applications in its first three years of existence, proving just how important assistance for active teachers has become. Public school educators, pre-K through 12, may apply for an Active Teacher Grant to help provide funds for a special project for their students. Applications are due by September 30 of each year, and up to $500 will be available for grants in each of the ten IRTA districts. More details and applications may be found at http://www.retiredteachers.org/foundation .
Irta Foundation has sCHOLARSHIPs FOR fUTURE tEACHERS
BARTA's parent organization, Indiana Retired Teachers Association and its Foundation, supports its members and their families by sponsoring a minimum of ten scholarships per year for Indiana college students. Sophomore and junior education majors who are children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, legal dependents, or spouses of active IRTA members may apply for a $2000 scholarship by June 30. A minimum of one scholarship in each of the ten IRTA areas will be awarded annually. Last year no one for our District 7 received an award because no eligible applications were received. Here in Indiana fewer and fewer students are working toward an education degree. Perhaps this lack of applicants is symptomatic of that malaise. For information use this link: http://www.retiredteachers.org/foundation .
