As many as 7,500 public workers in South Carolina could decideto throw in the towel next year when an incentive program thatkeeps employees working after retirement age ends in 2018.

According to a report from the Associated Press, about half ofthose workers are teachers, which means that the state could be infor a major teacher shortage, as well as losing other publicworkers.

The Columbia, SC newspaper The State is cited in the reportthat, under a 2012 law meant to shore up the state’s pension systemfor public workers, the program known as the Teacher EmployeeRetirement Incentive program, or TERI, will officially close June30, 2018.

Under TERI, retirees are allowed to work for up to five yearsmore after they officially retire and continue accumulating pensionbenefits. Their money is paid in a lump sum at the end of theprogram.

While the state legislature initially created the program in2000 to tempt teachers—already in short supply—to stay on the job,court decisions brought other public workers into the program.

That law alone, which also allowed workers to retire with fullbenefits after 28 years, constitutes close to $2 billion of a totalpension debt that now totals more than $20 billion.

The state already has a teacher shortage, with close to 6,500teachers leaving the classroom for good last year, and it’s notlikely that they’ll remain once the program ends.

While public workers who have officially retired can keepworking after TERI ends, the 2012 law suspends their retirementbenefits once their paychecks total $10,000 for the year. Theywould then have to wait till next year for their pension benefitsto resume, when the process would begin again.

The salary limit for working retirees and the end of the TERIprogram are “only magnifying what’s already a critical situation,”Pamela Arrington, chief human resources officer for the NewberryCounty School District, is quoted saying in the report, adding,“We”re all going to be looking for more people than we”ve beenlooking at before.”

The projected amount of the debt represents the state investmentportfolio’s current worth, compared with benefits likely owed toall 550,000 people in the system over their lifetimes. Otherchanges in the 2012 law affected how long newly hired employeeshave to work in order to get full benefits, and how those benefitsare calculated. Lawmakers have already passed anotherpension-shoring law earlier this year, increasing contributions,and say more changes are on the way.

Other state departments that could suffer from the program’s endinclude Corrections, Juvenile Justice and Social Services, all ofwhich also struggle to recruit and retain employees, in partbecause of tough working conditions and low pay.