UPDATED ...

Despite the Georgia Chamber of Commerce closing it to the press and even its own membership, a bit of news – or, rather, interesting hearsay – did surface from the double-super-secret Illuminati meeting, um, I mean debate, in Greensboro last week.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes, according to a person who was in the room, spoke in favor of investing state employees’ – including teachers’ – retirement funds in venture capital, a move some might consider risky.

Campaign manager Chris Carpenter said he wasn' there, but Barnes is "not in favor of touching teacher retirement," so he doubts Barnes included teachers along with other state employees in his statement. Barnes told the same thing to Channel 46 recently, Carpenter said, but they didn't include it in their story, and no tape of the debate exists.

Jeff Hubbard, the president of the Georgia Association of Educators, said he confirmed Barnes’ position with two people in attendance. If so, let’s just say that this is not going to help him bring teachers back into the fold.

“It has always been the position of GAE that retirement funds should never be utilized for this purpose,” Hubbard said in an e-mail. “We opposed this measure during his term in office and during the attempts throughout Governor Perdue’s administration.”

Went they went into the profession, teachers traded off higher salaries for the security of knowing their employer wouldn't gamble away their retirement money, Hubbard said. And TRS has done well over the past 60 years the way it is, he said.

Whether it's true or not, educators believe that Barnes is messing with their pensions.

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