Looking to save the school district money, the Garden City Board of Education approved an early retirement incentive at its regular meeting on January 26.

“We’re looking for a kind of win-win solution here,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Feirsen explained. “It benefits those who might be retiring and it benefits the school district, not in the coming year, but in future years, with lower salary costs.”

The current teachers’ contract stipulates that an individual can take advantage of an incentive if he or she chooses to retire when first eligible, which is normally at 55 years old, with a minimum of 10 years in the district. The incentive pays a person $75 a day for each unused sick day, to a maximum of 200 days, plus a $15,000 payout. Therefore, the most a person can receive is $30,000. If an individual does not take the incentive when first eligible, he or she may retire at a later time, but will not receive any payout, either for unused days or in a lump sum.

The incentive adopted by the school board on Tuesday evening essentially offers a one-time-only waiver of the “first eligible” portion of the contract. For example, someone who is 59 years old can participate by choosing to retire and still receive the payments.

How does this translate into savings for the school district? “The payout is made from our compensated absence fund, which was set up just for this purpose, so there is no charge against either this year’s or nest year’s budget,” explained Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Albert Chase in an e-mail to The Garden City News. “The teacher who leaves the district with a salary of $110,000 is replaced by one earning less than $70,000, thereby saving the district $40,000 or more both in the next school year and for many years after that. Multiply that differential by 15 teachers and the savings begins to add up.”

Chase said one of the down sides is that the district risks losing very experienced veteran teachers whom it would have liked to retain for several more years.

Superintendent Feirsen said the district realizes the drawbacks, but is seeking ways to save money. “We’ve done this periodically over the past several years to offer an opportunity for our senior staff who have met certain requirements in terms of service to the school district and age to take advantage of the retirement incentive....Frankly, the reason why we’re doing it is because it provides a cost savings to the school district in the long run.”

The district is looking at a 13.29 percent reduction in state aid, along with higher mandated pension costs. “Our state aid proposal from the governor is pretty bleak,” Dr. Feirsen said. “We don’t get all that much state aid, but a 13 percent reduction is nevertheless significant.”

He said he plans to discuss these issues in greater depth during upcoming budget work sessions. The first budget session is scheduled for February 9 at 8:15 p.m. at Garden City High School. Visit the district’s Web site for a complete listing of budget meetings.

In other financial news, the school board increased Dr. Feirsen’s salary for the current year by three percent to total $255,000. His previous salary was $247,500. His contract was also extended to 2014.