Editorial: Time to worry about unfunded liabilities
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Jan. 8, 2014, Sacramento Bee.
Senate Democrats announced legislation on Tuesday to expand kindergarten to help 4-year-old children get off to a strong start in school, at a cost of $198 million a year. It’s a great idea.
So is this: Paying the debt Californians incurred by promising to provide public school teachers with secure pensions. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System estimates that the cost to fully fund the teachers’ pension debt will be almost $4.5 billion in the coming year, $4.6 billion the year after that, and more in each subsequent year.
CalSTRS calculates that 30 years from now – and many veteran teachers who retire now will live another 30 years – the annual cost of fully funding the system will be $13.9 billion.
Excessive government employee pensions are ripping off the citizens, capiche?
They should be reduced. In the future all government employees need to have similar plans to those in the private sector.
Underworked, over paid and way over pensioned, no wonder California is such a basket case.
Cj, are you forgetting your meds?
same ol responses, thought the new year would bring an intelligent response.
hope your stocked up…
Dear go figure,
That sound you just heard was the bell. Time to get off the internet and get ready to teach your next class …
Sincerely,
California tax payer
Are you kidding CJ? The average salary for Public School Teacher is $55k per year. These are people with Bachelor Degrees or Higher in their fields. OMG, YES Teachers actually get a retirement pension. Teachers work hard teaching snot nosed – foul mouthed kids with parents that are more concerned about their next tatoo then whether or not little Johnny or Jane can read or write. Teachers factor in the pensions they receive later in life to put up with all the ill tempered brats now.
The only teaching I do is for myself
rock4tahoe,
You are wrong. Very wrong, did you just make up the number?
#1 – you need to check your sources. You are off by a significant amount.
#2 – I do not care about average wage, that is a poor point to base the discussion on. In particular in situation where wages go up in years of service instead of value of service.
The important number is the wages prior to retirement.
in teacher world, one year===7.5 months, so adjusted to the 12 months most people work, avg. teacher world salary===$88,000. by the way, lots of us have BA+ education, and work for a living, but are not members of the public unions that foist this pension plague on taxpayers. extortion, i believe it’s called.
The only person that is wrong is you CJ… on everything you post.
http://www1.salary.com/Public-School-Teacher-Salary.html
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28
http://www.nea.org/home/2011-2012-average-starting-teacher-salary.html
If anything, I might have estimated a bit high.
The “important” thing is that most of these so-called parents should not have kids in the first place since they treat Teachers like they are baby sitters.
Hey BAPH! Are you correcting kids papers at 9pm at night? Didn’t think so. You really think teachers should work at McDonald pay scales? And YOU are the one whining about NOT being a Teacher and part of a UNION? Really? LMAO!
rock4tahoe,
According to the CA Dept of Education web page in year 2008 the average salary for secondary education was $62,779 dollars. That is for a ¾ time job; which works out to the equivalent of $84,400 annual salary.
That was in 2008.
What exactly was I wrong about?
Please explain.
The important part of this issue is the pensions, I contend that they are excessive pensions.
Pensions are based on higher salaries than the average salary, that is a distraction.
As stated, government employee pensions are a rip-off of the tax payer.
“Pensions are based on higher salaries than the average salary” Most pensions are based on the final 3 years of service as it is in the military. There is a common occurrence for government employees to spike the final 3 years through final promotions,overtime, vacation pay and sick pay that they do not use and get it all at once. Unemployment does the same thing. They take your highest quarter’s gross pay divide by 52 and come up with a weekly amount. Smart people who know they are going to get unemployed should take a bonus during one quarter instead of spreading it through the year.
CJ! Teachers do NOT work 9 to 5! Try it sometime. Secondary Education is Jr High and High School. I DARE you to try to teach Math or Science to Jr High or High School “kids” 9 to 5. Oh, and by the way. Yes, I have taught part time at the College Level and for every hour in the classroom I had to work at least another hour out of the classroom, on my own time, just to prep and grade work. Get a clue!
More links from 2012 NOT 2008 that prove you are wrong …
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2012/04/16/california-ranks-no-5-for-annual-pay.html
I completely disagree with your OPINION on Teacher Pensions. Call it back pay for time and suffering working with clueless parents.
rock4tahoe,
How arrogant you are, you think others don’t work hard? Get over yourself.
My links are from the department of education, are you really a teacher?
last time,
so what?
Lots of people don’t work 9 to 5
Get over yourselves. Teachers are are not that special.
In fact there is a reason for the adage, those that can do, those that can’t teach.
Same back at you CJ. NO, I no longer teach. I had four links; do some math and take an average if you want. Personally, I don’t care what you think. It seems from what I read in other posts, you don’t even live in California. What else do you want to debate… favorite colors?
rock4tahoe,
Your lack of an answer is admitting you were wrong.
I’ve done the math, laid it out above, did you notice?
… from you I get four links to other peoples research, my information came from the department of education. I do my own research that way I know it is right.
As for Tahoe,
Tahoe is “America’s Jewel”, locals don’t own it.
anyway, I have business interests in Tahoe, whats’t it to ya, huh?
FYI, I do think that current public employee retirees will get a haircut on their pensions. It might take a few more years, the longer it takes the more damaged it will become.
Ah yes. We get to the heart of CJ’s opinion that “teachers are not that special.” Yet, I’ll wager that even CJ had special teachers in his life.
And folks … (Notice how he gives up and goes for the personal attacks, meaningless questions and worthless cliches’?) That’s how CJ and his ilk are pooned.
Yeah CJ lacks substance. Lots of hyperbole, rarely are the facts on their side. And when facts are around, they are cherry picked and everything contrary is ignored or dismissed.
They plagiarized a bogus economic metric (that is thoroughly disproven) and had the nerve to tell me about ‘simple’ economics when it was actually more about supply chain.
And the irony of this article being about educators…
hey rock, i am neither complaining about not being a teacher nor not being part of a teacher’s union. i have had special teachers in my life, but few, if any, were members of public unions. it’s the union clout on tax money that creates these impossible to fund retirement schemes.
Hey BAPH! Yawn. Still whining about “union clout” because you don’t have any… classic. You do know that California is again the 8th Largest Economy on the Planet (tied with Russia). The Average teacher monthly pension is $3700 (from the article). So, NO this is not a “retirement scheme” and it IS possible to fund.
rock still doesn’t get it. yawn.
Rock, California’s down to 12th largest economy now. Probably because of all those state employee retirement pay-outs.
;-)
HEY DOG! As usual, wrong again about California GDP.
http://www.ccsce.com/PDF/Numbers-July-2013-CA-Economy-Rankings-2012.pdf
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/07/california-poised-to-regain-eighth-8-rank-in-global-economy.html
See what can happen when you get rid of Conan the Barbarian type politicians.
And BAPH strikes out.
Depends which source you choose, Rock. I really don’t give a rat’s patootie.
If you don’t give a rats **** about facts, GDP, and the issues, why do you ever bother to comment?
How many people have to show you how uninformed you are before you do something about it?
Question for past & current teachers.
Do you feel guilty about being such a financial burden and possibly be the reason the whole pension scheme collapses?
There will come a time when we must decide to either keep the state running with just basics or pay the public employees’ pensions. What do you think the decision should be?
The laws of economics are as serious and real as the laws of physics.
Regards,
Nikki
Nikki, you forgot to add in the police, firemen, Caltrans and the thousands of supportive administrative staff that shuffle papers around in their cubicles on a daily basis.
well put, nikki. too bad our ‘educators’ just do not seem to get it.
Hey NIKKI! There are no “laws of economics.” You made that up.