The Mehlville Board of Education recently agreed to send a letter to the state’s education employee pension agency outlining its support for continued reforms to cap the amount of money school districts and employees contribute to the retirement system.

Board members voted Oct. 12 to send the letter to the Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems.

At their annual retreat in mid-August, the board agreed to write the letter to the PSRS/PEERS after discussing a plan that had been endorsed by the Missouri School Boards’ Association.

That plan, a funding stabilization policy, was approved Aug. 29 by the Board of Trustees of the Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems.

The plan freezes the amount employees contribute from their salary to the retirement system at the current rate of 14.5 percent for PSRS members — certified teachers — and 6.86 percent for PEERS members — non-certified employees. School districts match those contributions.

“… Just from a common-sense standpoint, it’s obviously impacting the district budget and therefore the taxpayers, and also it impacts the educators as well, too. They’re having a greater and greater portion of their pay going to this,” board member Mark Stoner said. “So I think anything that we can do to encourage our PSRS Board of Trustees to control costs, we should move forward with.”

A motion to send the letter made by board Vice President Larry Felton was seconded by board member Rich Franz and unanimously approved.