Weird situation. Shrinking demographics in the 70’s led to layoffs. By their union contract layoffs were done strictly by seniority. Working on a contract that was stepped by seniority, this led to a very top heavy cohort of teachers 20 years later, who were being paid top of the scale. To redistribute the ages of service they offered a limited number of buyouts, which lowered their overall costs and normalize the pipeline.
This was also a legit and reasonably sustainable move as the NY State Teachers fund, is funded at 101% of liabilities.