Like many supporters of public schools, I fear that taxpayer-funded private school vouchers will harm Texas students and Texas school staff. Any voucher scheme would divert money away from our struggling schools. The basic allotment, the state’s foundational per-student contribution to public schools, has remained stagnant since 2019. Texas students require these resources to learn, and Texas teachers require these resources to thrive.
But not much has been said about how privatization would harm people like me, one of the hundreds of thousands of retired teachers across Texas receiving a pension from the Texas Retirement System (TRS). Any voucher scheme that diverts taxpayer dollars to private schools will have a negative impact on retirees like me.
After nearly three decades as a public school teacher, I retired from Northside Independent School District in 2014. Since then, I have been able to live off my pension — only in part. I have had to work other jobs to make ends meet.
Since 2014, my fixed monthly pension hasn’t increased. While most states automatically increase their retirees’ pensions based on a cost-of-living adjustment, Texas does not automatically increase retired educators’ pensions to reflect inflation.
Despite the fact that inflation has increased by over 31% since I retired in 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, my pension has remained stagnant. Sadly, I’m better off than some of my peers. A Texas educator who has retired since 2004 has never received a cost-of-living adjustment. A dollar today is worth less than two-thirds of what it was worth in 2004.
After years of inaction, the Texas Legislature finally passed a small cost-of-living adjustment for retirees this year, but even this small adjustment requires voters’ approval at the ballot box.
But what does any of this have to do with taxpayer-funded vouchers?
Current public school employees pay into the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) pension fund. Vouchers send dollars out of public schools. Fewer dollars in public schools means fewer teachers, fewer bus drivers, fewer custodians and fewer cafeteria employees. This undoubtedly harms our children, but it also harms me and my pension. With fewer staff on payroll, contributions to TRS will decrease sharply. Meanwhile, with more staff leaving the public school system, the number of people drawing benefits from TRS will increase just as sharply.
Consider this, too: If vouchers were to pass, the remaining public school teachers likely would be paid less because of the dollars leaving the public school system. If teachers are paid less, the fixed percentage of their salary that they contribute to TRS is also less. This would compound the negative effect that stagnant teacher pay has had on the pension system.
The more expansive the voucher, the more extreme the negative effects will be. Gov. Greg Abbott has said he won’t settle for anything less than a universal voucher program. This would be devastating for the TRS pension system. It would be a deliberate policy decision by our state Legislature to defund public education and, in turn, to defund my pension.
Picture your favorite teacher in your mind. Now picture them after retirement, struggling to choose between refilling their medications or paying their electric bill. That’s what’s happening right now, and, I fear, it will become even worse for me and the half-million retired Texas educators should the governor get his taxpayer-funded voucher program.
If private school vouchers divert money from TRS, I fear that it might be even longer than a decade before I and the nearly half a million retired educators across Texas receive another cost-of-living adjustment. Tell your state legislators to vote against vouchers and protect retirees like me.
