Mohave Daily News: State

PHOENIX (AP) - Large pay increases are luring hundreds of principals, teachers and administrators to join Arizona's latest double-dipping retirement trend.

By law, the state's retired teachers and principals must wait one year before getting back into a school full time.

But many are collecting pension benefits without leaving their jobs or skipping a paycheck.

New small businesses have found a way around the one-year wait by hiring retired teachers and immediately leasing them back to their districts.

About 500 ''retired'' teachers and administrators as well as a few secretaries and janitors in 95 districts are working as lease-back employees, collecting paychecks and pension benefits.

More districts are pushing eligible teachers into lease-back programs because it can save districts millions of dollars in employee benefits they no longer have to pay.

However, it's a potential drain on Arizona State Retirement System funds because it leaves teachers without employee protections they normally enjoy and it closes off already limited opportunities for younger workers to be promoted.

Teachers comprise 30 percent of the contributors to the Arizona State Retirement System, and their average age is 44.

Officials said the fund is kept solvent by calculating the number of working members, their age, when they are expected to retire, how many workers replace them and when they die.

That formula is thrown out of balance when workers draw pensions and are not replaced by new younger workers feeding into the system.

That's why lawmakers have successfully discouraged early retirement and full-time double dipping by requiring retirees to sit out a year before returning full time.