Administrators and Supervisors - nonpublic teaching service credit

Legislative: A 7375 Weisenberg - M. of A., et al.
Reference: S 4322

Title: AN ACT to authorize members of the New York State and New York City teachers’retirement systems and the New York State and local employees’retirement system to claim retirement credit for certain private school teaching service.

This bill allows members of the New York State Teachers’Retirement System and New York City Teachers’Retirement System and certain members of the New York State and local employees’retirement system who are employed by teaching institutions to claim up to five (5) years of retirement credit for nonpublic school teaching service within New York State. Such credit would be used only for determining the amount of pension payable upon retirement and would not be used to purposes of qualifying for retirement or for calculation of final average salary.

The Council of Administrators and Supervisors supports this bill. All prior teaching experience, whether public or private, is of great value to public school teachers and the students they instruct. Indeed, Tier I members of the New York State Teachers’Retirement System have long been allowed service credit for out-of-state teaching service. Yet those who have teaching experience in nonpublic schools in New York State do not enjoy this same benefit. As a result, qualified teachers may be deterred from a career in public school teaching. At a time when our public schools -and in particular, low-performance schools -face a growing shortage of certified teachers in specific subject areas such as math and science, we can ill afford such irrational employment disincentives.