PROVIDENCE — They left the state college system in droves in recent months to avoid paying more for their health insurance or losing it entirely, and they left with thousands of dollars in retirement incentives and severance payments for things like unused sick time.

But now, 44 retirees from Rhode Island College, the Community College of Rhode Island and the University of Rhode Island are back on the state payroll — in many cases, back in their old jobs as professors, administrators, school nurses, accountants and computer technicians while collecting state-subsidized pensions.

Some of these retirees have been brought back as “adjunct faculty” to teach one or more courses, for which they are being paid anywhere from $3,200 to $17,659 per semester. A $45-an-hour “clinical nursing specialist” returned. So did the $50-an-hour computer operations manager at URI, the director of institutional research at RIC, and a handful of computer and financial office staff at CCRI who were brought back to work “19 hours per week replacing self,” according to a summary compiled by the Officer of Higher Education at The Providence Journal’s request.

The returnees include the former CCRI dean of administration, Stephen Marginson, who received a $43,255 incentive that boosted his severance pay to $97,603, and RIC’s former director of institutional research, Donna Konicki, who got a $37,658 incentive that hiked her severance pay to $88,223.

Marginson was brought back for a $7,988 teaching gig. Konicki returned as a $20,019 “consultant.”

Overall, 90 faculty and administrators in the state college and university system received a total of $2.3 million in incentives, ranging from $13,870 to the $75,850 paid to Rhode Island College’s retired president, John Nazarian. The employees were among 1,521 state workers who retired between May 1 and Sept. 30 as part of an effort to cut the state payroll.

All told, the state paid out $18.8 million to the retirees, including unused sick and vacation time and other payments.

While those in the state college system got cash incentives to leave, other state employees were persuaded to do so to avoid paying more for their post-retirement health insurance if they remained on the payroll past Sept. 30.

When first asked the legal basis for putting retirees back on the payroll, a spokesman for the Board of Governors for Higher Education cited a state law allowing the colleges and university to recall their retirees “on a part-time basis” for “the purpose of providing classroom instruction, academic advising of students and/or coaching” at a pay level not to exceed $15,000 in any one calendar year.

When asked, however, how that law justified the rehiring of top-level administrators, back-office financial staff and computer techs — including one CCRI retiree with a $44,412 state pension — spokesman Steven J. Maurano offered up a new and previously unheard of argument in the halls of state government, after consulting with Ron Cavallaro, general counsel to the Board of Governors for Higher Education.

Maurano said Cavallaro believes the law limiting which retirees can be rehired — and how much they can earn without giving up their retirement benefits — applies only to those enrolled in the state retirement system, not the vast majority of newly retired state college and university faculty and administrators enrolled in the privately operated TIAA-CREF, to which the state contributes 9 percent of pay annually for each enrollee.

Under that reading, Maurano said, the administrators of the state college system can bring back whomever they want, for however long they want, at whatever level of pay they deem appropriate without any loss of retirement benefits.

As for why the colleges and university called its retirees back to work, Maurano said this was “the only way” the schools could continue to “meet student needs” and offer what they considered essential services after such a large wave of retirements.

A memo on the point from CCRI administrators said: “These individuals are paid an hourly rate of pay, have limited hours of service, and receive no fringe benefits. This legislation was passed in recognition of the continued and valued service such an individual can bring to CCRI students.”

The memo continued: “With over 100 vacancies and the last-minute decisions made by many of this year’s retirees, CCRI would be unable to deliver critical and essential services without the option of re-employing some of our retirees in both short-term and long-term capacities … The addition of these individuals to our adjunct pool is very beneficial to the college and students alike. … We are also very dependent on hourly student advisors who are properly skilled in the college’s curriculum and programs. … In a select number of instances, we may hire a retiree back for a limited period of time while we are searching to fill the permanent slot, to complete a major project, such as the financial audit, or to transition between old technologies and new.

“This year we are also particularly cognizant that with the state’s fiscal uncertainty, it would not be wise to rush to fill the large number of vacancies that we need to fill in order to adequately meet student needs, in and out of the classroom. The part-time support of retirees is a much less expensive alternative toward quality assurance while we strategically plan how to best use our human resource allocations.”

Asked yesterday if the Carcieri administration had also filled holes in the state roster with retirees, the governor’s spokeswoman, Amy Kempe, said she was aware that 27 retired registered nurses had been called back on an emergency basis to fill gaps in the nursing staff at Eleanor Slater Hospital, and three more within the state-run group home networks. State law allows retired state-employed nurses to return for limited periods of time without giving up their pensions as long as they earn no more than $12,000 a year.

Kempe said the state Board of Elections may also have brought retirees back to help run last month’s elections. She said she did not know what state law would have allowed their callback.

She said she was unaware of any other retirees back on the state payroll, but acknowledged that former state Medicaid director Frank Spinelli has continued working “voluntarily” (meaning for no pay), on the state’s bid for a federal Medicaid waiver aimed at saving the state $67 million this year.

A list of retirees back on the job: