Emily Carpenter is still teaching first grade at A. C. Moore Elementary in Columbia this year, even though she could have retired last summer after 28 years. She came back as a participant in the TERI program. And now, she's the school's "Teacher of the Year".

TERI is short for Teacher and Employee Retention Incentive. It was passed as a way for state agencies and schools to keep their best veteran employees on the job past retirement. They keep getting paid and no longer have to pay into the retirement system. But the state does keep paying into the system, so TERI is costing the state millions.

And the state found out that the program had to be open to all employees, not just the cream of the crop.

Gov. Mark Sanford wants to end TERI as a way to improve the financial condition of the state's retirement system. So does Aiken Sen. Greg Ryberg, who's sponsored a bill to do that.

"We have a shortfall of money in the retirement system," Sen. Ryberg says. "That's going to hurt taxpayers, because the only way you can get the money in there is to have it come out of the general fund or from the employees." Coming out of the general fund is more likely, he says, and would mean cuts in state services.

But Carpenter and other educators say ending TERI would make the current teacher shortage even worse. "Because all the Baby Boomer teachers who are staying on, the veteran teachers who now have an incentive to stay on, might not," she says.

Sen. Ryberg doesn't agree, saying the average length of service before TERI existed was 32 or 33 years. Now, with TERI, teachers and state employees are going into TERI after 28 years and working another 5 years, so it's the same length of service.

Gov. Sanford's spokesman, Will Folks, says, "How would there be a mass exodus given that all current teachers are still eligible for the program? All we're doing is closing the system to new hires, which, quite frankly, some folks don't think goes far enough in addressing our $4.4 billion unfunded liability."

But Sen. Ryberg's bill doesn't apply only to new hires; it would close the program on July 1, 2005. He says the step has to be taken because TERI simply isn't working the way it was envisioned and it's draining state finances.