Ala. Governor Working On Retirement Incentives

Gov. Robert Bentley says he's getting close to proposing retirement incentives for state employees and he may follow that with retirement incentives for public school employees. Bentley said Thursday he's got no goal yet for the number of retirements, but the state would cut its expenses by $82 million if 1,500 employees retired. Bentley said retired teachers would have to be replaced, but the new employees would be younger teachers making less pay than veteran educators. He said 5,000 retirements would save $100 million. Bentley said he's working on the incentives to offer, but two possibilities are a lump sum payment over two years or paying part of the employee's health insurance costs after retirement. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.