The retirement paperwork for more than two dozen employees of local school systems was processed in December, nearly nine months after it was announced that waiting until the end of the school year could cost retirees serious money. Last March, the Teachers Retirement System of Georgia announced the repeal of its discretionary tax offset, used to balance the income tax charged to retirement benefits.The offset, established in 1990, gave teachers a 3 percent increase in benefits for the first $37,500 a year after a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that every state must treat the taxation of retirement benefits the same.Prior to that, teachers in Georgia were not taxed on their retirement packages.But as of Tuesday, teachers who have not retired will lose that 3 percent increase. The announcement pushed teachers, administrators and staff out the door sooner than some anticipated or, in other cases, wanted.According to TRS, the organization processed 1,900 retirements last month — up more than 730 percent from December 2011 when the system processed 259 requests.But, system officials said, the retirements are down 60 percent statewide for this month compared to the same time last year.“We really think that a lot of the people (who) took advantage of that tax offset by Dec. 1 probably were going to retire at the end of the year,” said Jeffery Ezell, TRS executive director.