Involuntary retirement account is messing up my tax savings

My wife is a teacher and she has always had an involuntary retirement account through the public schools. In previous years that retirement account has been a 457b, which to the best of knowledge has allowed her to contribute to a traditional IRA tax deferred (no check mark in box 13 of her w-2). Without any notice the public schools switched it over to a 401a plan for 2008, which to the best of my knowledge does NOT allow her to contribute to a traditional IRA with tax deferred (box 13 on her w-2 does have a check mark for retirement account). This kind of screwed me over as you can imagine because I was counting on the tax savings like in previous years for her traditional IRA.

My questions are: The amount of her 457b, now 401a, has been trivial and we have no control over it. Is there nothing we can do to supplement her retirement in a tax deferred account because of the 401a? Also, my wife is quitting her job in in May for our first baby. Because she will have been employed Jan through April with the involuntary retirement account will we still not be able to contribute to a supplemental tax deferred account?

Thanks,
Regis Cassidy

Do you qualify for a Roth IRA? If so, you may want to consider giving up the immediate gratification of a lower annual tax bill to start funding one. It is very likely that you will be in higher tax bracket in retirement, so you may very well be deferring taxes at a lower rate using the 401a now, only to pay a higher rate later.

Also, do you have any self-employed income? There are several plans that can be used to defer a sizable chunk of your compensation for self-employed businesses.