AUSTIN, Texas —
Texas teacher's retirement payments are going up in the new year!
Retired teachers in Texas will get an increase thanks to a cost-of-living adjustment that was approved by voters in November.
A cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, hasn't been given to retired teachers since 2013. Even then, only teachers who retired by Austin 2004 got it. So those teachers who retired in the last 20 years have not gotten a COLA even though the cost of goods and services has gone up.
"It means everything. Every penny counts, though. This is for life," Roslyn M. Caldwell said. "When your body cannot do what it used to do when you're younger."
Caldwell is a retired teacher in Central Texas who was an educator for about 30 years. She says that this is huge and that the proposition got a lot of support, especially after the pandemic.
"Just to be able to sustain and to live the life that they should because they help create you doctors, lawyers, and people like that," Caldwell said.
Prop 9 authorized a one-time COLA between 2 and 6% depending on when the teacher retired. Lawmakers also passed a bill to give retired teachers between 70 and 75 years old a one-time supplemental payment.
Altogether, it would be about $5 billion.
"Teachers out of everyone are the lowest at the totem pole," Caldwell said. "And when COVID hit ... We really were appreciated because moms and dads or grandma, sisters, brothers became teachers. So we're like, wow, you guys really need an increase."
This new adjustment also applies to retired school staff like bus drivers and custodians, so it will give thousands of retired Texans some help. The $5 billion to fund the COLA comes from the state's surplus budget.