A Georgia board voted unanimously Wednesday to maintain current cost-of-living increases for pensions under the Teacher Retirement System.

The TRS Board of Trustees voted against an amendment proposed two months ago that would change the 40-year-old policy guaranteeing retirees 1.5 percent increases twice a year. The change, proposed by Gov. Sonny Perdue’s office, would have allowed the board to decrease the percent to 1 or even 0.5 percent.

“We’re glad the board listened to the opposed voices from across the state,” Stuart Ivy, vice president of the University’s Staff Council, said in a phone interview Wednesday.

The Teacher Retirement System of Georgia received about 20,000 e-mails or letters against the policy change and three in favor of it, said executive director Jeffrey Ezell.

The proposal would have changed the fundamental nature of the program, said Ralph Steuer, the board’s Board of Regents-appointed member and professor of banking and finance.

“It wouldn’t truly be a defined benefit program,” he said by telephone Wednesday. “You’re promised certain benefits and pay into it, and if something goes wrong, it’s the responsibility of the sponsor.”

“It wouldn’t be morally right to put money aside and then have it taken away. By the time you retire, it’s essentially a property right,” he said. “I think the realization dawned on the board … it’s a good example of where it pays off for people to register their feelings with their representatives.”