TERI Refund Checks on Way

NEWS ARTICLE EXCERPT

By: John O'Connor, The State (Columbia, SC), June 30, 2006

The check is in the mail for thousands of public employees whose pay the S.C. Supreme Court ruled the state had wrongfully withheld beginning in 2005.

The state will begin mailing out today $31.8 million in withheld wages and interest to 13,891 participants in the Teacher and Employee Retention Incentive program to meet a court-ordered July 1 deadline.

The money had to be repaid after the court ruled a 2005 law changing the program - which required enrolled workers to begin contributing 6.25 percent of their pay to the retirement system - had broken a contract.

Those contributions were held in a separate account until the lawsuit was resolved.

The average check will be more than $2,300, including 4 percent interest.

Aiken resident Sam Turnipseed already knows how he will spend his roughly $3,000 check - donating it to a mission group that does charity work in Honduras.

"I think the legislators who screwed this up ought to match that contribution," Turnipseed said. "I'm tickled to death."

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Contact The State, http://www.thestate.com/, for the full article.