School district offers early retirement deal to Cleveland teachers

CLEVELAND (AP) -- The Cleveland school district is offering veteran teachers $25,000 to retire early under a buyout plan designed to save the system millions of dollars in salary costs.
A minimum of 150 teachers must apply by Jan. 20 for the plan to take effect. If more than 250 apply, district officials will decide who gets the buyout based on seniority.
The Cleveland Teachers Union hopes the buyout of higher-paid teachers will bring back more of the hundreds of lower-paid teachers with less seniority who were laid off in the past few years.
Lisa Marie Ruda, the district's chief of staff, said that how many retired employees are actually replaced depends on what jobs open up.
The district now has 3,605 teachers, down from 5,168 in 2002.
While the buyout will involve an initial outlay of money, Ruda said the salary savings will be in the millions in the next three years.
The district wants to spread the buyout payments over two years, beginning in July 2006.
The second payment would come in July 2007.
The payouts might seem strange for a school district that has had two failed tax-increase requests in the past year and has made millions of dollars in cuts.
But new projections last week by the district's chief financial officer, Gerald Pace, showed the district will finish the next two years in the black and can afford the program.