Between April 29 and December 31, 1982, 244 community college employees in Washington retired. Of that group, 85 exercised an option to retire under a special early retirement program enacted by the 1982 state legislature. The net effect of the early retirement program was a 53.4% increase in the number of retirements over the number that might have otherwise been expected. This increase affected the community college system in the following ways: (1) a 1-year net savings of $821,226 was realized, due primarily to a relatively high incidence of positions eliminated in the early retirement group when compared to the group that retired under the regular program; (2) of the 85 early retirees, 47.1% were classified staff, 43.5% were faculty members, and 9.4% were administrative staff; (3) of the 159 employees retiring under normal eligibility criteria, 45.9% were faculty members, 37.7% were classified staff, and 16.3% were administrators; and (4) compared to the regular retirement group, the early retirement group had significantly fewer full-time and more part-time replacements. The early retirement program, occurring during a period of budget reductions, undoubtedly softened the impact of budget cuts by eliminating the need to pursue reduction-in-force actions on some campuses. Unfortunately, the savings from early retirements offset only about 2% of the budget reductions. (Author/LAL)