Teacher retirement bill wins initial House approval

Staff Report

    AUGUSTA — The Maine House of Representatives gave initial approval to a bill last week that restores full state responsibility for paying into the teacher retirement system, reversing a tax shift to local communities imposed in 2013. The vote was 119-27.

    The bill now goes to the Senate.
    “This bill shifts the cost of teacher retirement away from municipalities, their residents and their small businesses,” said Democratic Rep. Walter Kumiega of Deer Isle, the sponsor of LD 60. “It reduces uncertainty in local budgets and simplifies the entire process. It tells our local property taxpayers that the state cannot simply balance the budget on their backs whenever it runs into fiscal challenges.”
    The bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Paul Stearns of Guilford. Representatives Norman Higgins of Dover-Foxcroft and Raymond Wallace of Dexter joined Stearns in voting for the measure.
    The biennial state budget passed in 2013 required Maine cities and towns, for the first time ever, to pay some teacher retirement costs. School districts are now facing a possible increase of 24 percent in teacher retirement costs in the upcoming fiscal year, according to the Maine Municipal Association.
    “State education aid fell short of covering this tax shift to local communities, further squeezing already-strained school budgets,” said Rep. Victoria Kornfield of Bangor, the House chair of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee. “This bill reverses this tax shift and returns the responsibility to the state where it belongs.”