As Yogi Berra once said, "It's déjà vu all over again."

Last year, as the General Assembly met in special session, I joined in a broad effort to ensure that health care benefits for retired teachers would not be cut dramatically.

We wrote letters, held rallies and met with legislators to ensure that the state honored its sacred compact with these noble educators. In a rare recent case of bipartisanship in Frankfort, House Budget Committee Chairman Harry Moberly led a successful legislative effort to restore access to affordable health care for Kentucky's retired teachers.

But as the General Assembly meets again this year, the Fletcher administration has submitted yet another budget proposal that falls short – far short – of the commitment we must make to retired teachers. Indeed, unless the legislature increases funding, some retired teachers and school employees who now pay no premium for health coverage could be forced to pay up to $515 a month.

This crisis has a familiar cause: dramatic increases in health care costs combined with an increasing number of baby-boom retirees. The Kentucky Teachers' Retirement System, on whose board I serve, anticipated this problem by building a more than $150 million reserve fund and by successfully lobbying the General Assembly to enact legislation in early 2004 to provide a sufficient state contribution to maintain the retired teachers' medical plan at current levels.

But since no budget was passed last year, the legislation went unfunded. And the administration's budget bill fell $81 million short of the previous legislative commitment.

Of course, every Kentuckian has faced the squeeze of skyrocketing health insurance costs in recent years. But Kentucky's retired educators deserve special consideration from state lawmakers.

Those of us with school-age children deeply understand the value of talented teachers who, day after day, put all of their energies into shaping young minds into powerful tools for progress. Teachers surely do not take on this incredible responsibility for the glory or the pay. They teach simply because they recognize that education is the building block of a progressive society and a successful economy.

Teachers accept an unwritten but broadly understood compact that in return for their hard, noble work at low pay, we provide them with good benefits: affordable health care for themselves and their own children and the promise of a safe and secure retirement.

However, under current law, retired teachers are treated inequitably from other public employees. While medical insurance benefits for other state employees are part of an inviolable contract with the state, retired teacher benefits are limited to the funding available, otherwise known as a pay-as-you-go plan.

At 1 p.m. today, we will join again for a "Don't Forget Retired Teachers" day in the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort, where we will rally and meet with legislators. We will urge the General Assembly to increase the level of funding for retired teachers' benefits to the amount previously promised.

However, this is just a temporary solution. We will also urge legislators to address the long-term funding inequity and give retired teachers the same inviolable contract that other state employees share. We cannot find ourselves replaying the same budget crises and reactive measures every two years for decades to come.

I am very encouraged by recent House actions to remedy the problem. I urge members of the Senate to complete the task of fully funding health coverage for these people to whom we are so indebted.

There are more than 34,000 retired teachers and school employees in Kentucky. All have contributed part of their salaries toward their retirement and health care benefits. All have gone into their classrooms every day, accepting peanuts for paychecks, with the promise that future benefits would help redress many of their sacrifices.

We owe it to them to uphold our side of the compact, to provide them with the secure and healthy retirement they sorely deserve.