Henry Kisor wrote:

One of the reasons -- maybe the primary reasons -- states like teachers in
their 50s to retire is that they can be replaced by fresh new teachers just
out of college at starting salaries much less than those the veterans were
getting. It actually saves the states money.

Jay Honeck responded:

Hmmm. Not sure I see the math here.

While the state may save, say, half of the older teacher's salary (let's say
my sister was making $45,000 -- so they'll cut it by half in retirement, to
$22.5K) they then have to pay a new teacher what, $25K to start, plus
benefits?

Thus, we've lost a few grand in the mix.

Of course, "retirement pay" comes out of a different bucket of cash in the
state's budget then "teacher's salary", so ON PAPER they LOOK like they
"saved the taxpayers some money"...

More typical gubmint accounting, is my hunch.

I suspect that they make up a substantial portion of that perceived "lost few
grand" in the medical benefits payments. It's my impression that older worker's
(as a class) medical outlays greatly exceed those of younger workers, and the
retiree medical plan generally is funded more by the retiree than the state,
unlike the active employee medical plan.

Russell Kent