Pensions are unfunded. Where will the money come from? Should they just go bankrupt and restructure the pensions? The following piece appeared on American City & County
New Hampshire has the same problems, pensions were promised by legislators and bureaucrats not taxpayers. The pensions should have never been promised in the first place. When they can't be paid you can bet this will not sit pretty with those people and chaos will ensue just like it has in France, Greece, England and Spain. Lord help us, all let us hope these pensioners wise up and restructure their pensions now.
New Hampshire Legislators now is the time to solve the problem before it is too late.
“Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
States lack $1 trillion for pensions
May 1, 2010 12:00 PM, By Jennifer Grzeskowiak
Some states are drastically underfunding their obligations to retirees
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States have only actually funded $2.35 trillion of the $3.35 trillion in employee retirement benefits they owe, according to a recently released report from Washington-based Pew Center for the States. The shortfall could lead to larger liabilities in the future and cuts in services, even at the local government level.
The report, "The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded state retirement systems and the roads to reform," ranks state pension and retiree health care/non-pension benefit systems based on three criteria: a funding ratio of at least 80 percent; an unfunded liability below covered payroll; and an average payment of at least 90 percent of the actuarially required contribution over the past five years. It designates 16 states as "solid performers" for meeting all three standards for their pensions. Another 15 states are "in need of improvement" and 19 are designated as "meriting serious concerns," meaning they did not meet any of the criteria.
Many of the strong performing states consistently fund their systems in both financially good and bad years, and many have a legal requirement to fund their pension systems. The poorly performing states often failed to contribute enough to their plans in good times and made other mistakes, says Katherine Barrett, a consultant for Pew Center on the States.
If states fail to address their pension gaps, less money could be distributed to local governments, such as in the form of highway funds, and reimbursements from the state for social services could be cut, says Chris Hoene, director of research and innovation for the Washington-based National League of Cities.
It is difficult to predict when the unfunded liabilities will reach that critical level because of vagaries in the investment markets and other factors. "But, you can see that states with larger unfunded liabilities already have to pay a lot more each year," Barrett says. "That becomes more of an expensive problem the longer you put it off."
Jennifer Grzeskowiak is a Laguna Beach, Calif.-based freelance writer.
Showing posts with label Pensions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pensions. Show all posts
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Pension Tsunami is Starting to Hit
Jim and I have been saying for years that pensions are bankrupting the States, you know the problem must be completely out of hand if the New York Times is reporting the crisis. These pensions were unsustainable from the getgo and should have never been negoiated in the first place. One way to solve both the public pension problem and the social security problem at once is to transfer all public pensions funds to social security and have everyone recieve social security. Be sure to visit the New York Times for links associated with the story.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
PAYBACK TIME
In Budget Crisis, States Take Aim at Pension Costs
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Published: June 19, 2010
Many states are acknowledging this year that they have promised pensions they cannot afford and are cutting once-sacrosanct benefits, to appease taxpayers and attack budget deficits.
Enlarge This Image
Seth Perlman/Associated Press
Gov. Pat Quinn said an overhaul would save Illinois’s pension system $300 million in its first year. But the fund is weakened.
Payback Time
Untouchable Benefits
Articles in this series are examining the consequences of, and efforts to deal with, growing public and private debts.
Previous Articles in the Series »
Illinois raised its retirement age to 67, the highest of any state, and capped public pensions at $106,800 a year. Arizona, New York, Missouri and Mississippi will make people work more years to earn pensions. Virginia is requiring employees to pay into the state pension fund for the first time. New Jersey will not give anyone pension credit unless they work at least 32 hours a week.
“We can’t afford to deny reality or delay action any longer,” said Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois, adding that his state’s pension cuts, enacted in March, will save some $300 million in the first year alone.
But there is a catch: Nearly all of the cuts so far apply only to workers not yet hired. Though heralded as breakthrough reforms by state officials, the cuts phase in so slowly they are unlikely to save the weakest funds and keep them from running out of money. Some new rules may even hasten the demise of the funds they were meant to protect.
Lawmakers wanted to avoid legal battles or fights with unions, whose members can be influential voters. So they are allowing most public workers across the country to keep building up their pensions at the same rate as ever. The tens of thousands of workers now on Illinois’s payrolls, for instance, will still get to retire at 60 — and some will as young as 55.
One striking exception is Colorado, which has imposed cuts on its current workers, not just future hires, and even on people who have already retired. The retirees have sued to block the reduction.
Other states with shrinking funds and deep fiscal distress may be pushed in this direction and tempted to follow Colorado’s example in the coming years. Though most state officials believe they are legally bound to shield current workers from pension cuts, a Colorado victory could embolden them to be more aggressive.
Colorado pruned a 3.5 percent annual pension increase to 2 percent, concluding that was the fastest way to revive its pension fund, which was projected to run out of money by 2029. The cut may sound small, but it produces big results because it goes into effect immediately. State plans vary widely, but many have other costly features, like subsidized early-retirement benefits, which could likewise be trimmed for existing workers.
Despite its pension reform, Illinois is still in deep trouble. That vaunted $300 million in immediate savings? The state produced it by giving itself credit now for the much smaller checks it will send retirees many years in the future — people who must first be hired and then, for full benefits, work until age 67.
By recognizing those far-off savings right away, Illinois is letting itself put less money into its pension fund now, starting with $300 million this year.
That saves the state money, but it also weakens the pension fund, actually a family of funds, raising the risk of a collapse long before the real savings start to materialize.
“We’re within a few years of having some of the pension funds run out of money,” said R. Eden Martin, president of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a business group that has been warning of a “financial implosion” for several years. “Funding for the schools is going to be cut radically. Funding for Medicaid. As these things all mount up, there’s going to be a lot of outrage.”
Joshua D. Rauh, an associate professor of finance at Northwestern University who studies public pension funds, predicts that at the current rate, Illinois’s pension system could run out of money by 2018. He believes the funds of other troubled states — including New Jersey, Indiana and Connecticut — are also on track to run out of money in less than a decade, unless they make meaningful changes.
If a state pension fund ran out of money, the state would be legally bound to make good on retirees’ benefits. But paying public pensions straight out of general revenue would be ruinous. In Illinois’s case, it would consume about half the state’s cash every year, bringing other vital state services to a standstill.
Mr. Rauh said he thinks any state caught in that trap would have little choice but to seek a federal bailout. Bigger pension contributions and higher taxes can go only so far.
Many state officials, hoping for a huge recovery in the markets, say that such projections are too pessimistic, and that cutting benefits for future workers must suffice, given laws and provisions in state constitutions that make membership in a state pension fund a contractual relationship that cannot be breached.
Lawyers, though, are raising the possibility that those laws are being misinterpreted.
“It makes no sense to suggest that an employee who works for the state for a single day has acquired a right to have future pension benefits calculated for the next 20 to 40 years under whatever method was in effect on that single first day of service,” states a legal memorandum prepared for the Commercial Club of Chicago, which is concerned that a public pension collapse would badly damage the city’s business climate.
The club’s members include senior executives of big companies, like Boeing, Aon, Kraft, Motorola and I.B.M., that have frozen pensions or slowed the rates at which their workers build up benefits.
Some of those cuts set off titanic battles. The most famous was at I.B.M., which changed its pension plan just when many of its older workers were about to earn sharply higher retirement benefits. Aggrieved workers sued, but after a long battle, a federal appellate court found that the cuts were legal.
“An employer is free to move from one legal plan to another legal plan, provided that it does not diminish vested interests,” or the benefits workers have already earned, wrote Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. He did not distinguish between corporate employers and states.
Colorado is basing its legal defense, in part, on a 1961 state supreme court ruling that said pension cuts for current workers were allowed if “actuarially necessary,” and will argue that it applies to retirees as well. Other states may not have such legal tools.
In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone a different route, bargaining with the 12 unions that represent public employees. Last week four of them agreed to let the state cut its own contributions by requiring current workers to pay sharply more for the same pensions. The workers will contribute 10 percent of their pay, in some cases double the previous rate, to the state pension fund. Some other states are raising employee contributions as well, though less sharply.
In New Jersey, the administration of Gov. Christopher J. Christie recently imposed pension cuts on future hires, but has been quietly looking into whether it could also reduce the benefits that current employees expect to accumulate in the coming years.
“Can they change the benefit formula going forward? Sure. It’s not etched in stone,” said Edward Thomson III, an actuary and trustee of the New Jersey pension system who was asked to offer an opinion on whether New Jersey could adopt the federal pension law — the one that covers companies — as its governing statute.
A state assemblyman, Declan J. O’Scanlon Jr., recently introduced a bill to ratchet back a 9 percent pension increase that the state gave most workers in 2001.
“I think this will pass constitutional muster,” Mr. O’Scanlon said. “Otherwise, I fear the whole system will fall apart. Nine years — we’re out of money.”
Amy Schoenfeld contributed reporting.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
PAYBACK TIME
In Budget Crisis, States Take Aim at Pension Costs
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Published: June 19, 2010
Many states are acknowledging this year that they have promised pensions they cannot afford and are cutting once-sacrosanct benefits, to appease taxpayers and attack budget deficits.
Enlarge This Image
Seth Perlman/Associated Press
Gov. Pat Quinn said an overhaul would save Illinois’s pension system $300 million in its first year. But the fund is weakened.
Payback Time
Untouchable Benefits
Articles in this series are examining the consequences of, and efforts to deal with, growing public and private debts.
Previous Articles in the Series »
Illinois raised its retirement age to 67, the highest of any state, and capped public pensions at $106,800 a year. Arizona, New York, Missouri and Mississippi will make people work more years to earn pensions. Virginia is requiring employees to pay into the state pension fund for the first time. New Jersey will not give anyone pension credit unless they work at least 32 hours a week.
“We can’t afford to deny reality or delay action any longer,” said Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois, adding that his state’s pension cuts, enacted in March, will save some $300 million in the first year alone.
But there is a catch: Nearly all of the cuts so far apply only to workers not yet hired. Though heralded as breakthrough reforms by state officials, the cuts phase in so slowly they are unlikely to save the weakest funds and keep them from running out of money. Some new rules may even hasten the demise of the funds they were meant to protect.
Lawmakers wanted to avoid legal battles or fights with unions, whose members can be influential voters. So they are allowing most public workers across the country to keep building up their pensions at the same rate as ever. The tens of thousands of workers now on Illinois’s payrolls, for instance, will still get to retire at 60 — and some will as young as 55.
One striking exception is Colorado, which has imposed cuts on its current workers, not just future hires, and even on people who have already retired. The retirees have sued to block the reduction.
Other states with shrinking funds and deep fiscal distress may be pushed in this direction and tempted to follow Colorado’s example in the coming years. Though most state officials believe they are legally bound to shield current workers from pension cuts, a Colorado victory could embolden them to be more aggressive.
Colorado pruned a 3.5 percent annual pension increase to 2 percent, concluding that was the fastest way to revive its pension fund, which was projected to run out of money by 2029. The cut may sound small, but it produces big results because it goes into effect immediately. State plans vary widely, but many have other costly features, like subsidized early-retirement benefits, which could likewise be trimmed for existing workers.
Despite its pension reform, Illinois is still in deep trouble. That vaunted $300 million in immediate savings? The state produced it by giving itself credit now for the much smaller checks it will send retirees many years in the future — people who must first be hired and then, for full benefits, work until age 67.
By recognizing those far-off savings right away, Illinois is letting itself put less money into its pension fund now, starting with $300 million this year.
That saves the state money, but it also weakens the pension fund, actually a family of funds, raising the risk of a collapse long before the real savings start to materialize.
“We’re within a few years of having some of the pension funds run out of money,” said R. Eden Martin, president of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a business group that has been warning of a “financial implosion” for several years. “Funding for the schools is going to be cut radically. Funding for Medicaid. As these things all mount up, there’s going to be a lot of outrage.”
Joshua D. Rauh, an associate professor of finance at Northwestern University who studies public pension funds, predicts that at the current rate, Illinois’s pension system could run out of money by 2018. He believes the funds of other troubled states — including New Jersey, Indiana and Connecticut — are also on track to run out of money in less than a decade, unless they make meaningful changes.
If a state pension fund ran out of money, the state would be legally bound to make good on retirees’ benefits. But paying public pensions straight out of general revenue would be ruinous. In Illinois’s case, it would consume about half the state’s cash every year, bringing other vital state services to a standstill.
Mr. Rauh said he thinks any state caught in that trap would have little choice but to seek a federal bailout. Bigger pension contributions and higher taxes can go only so far.
Many state officials, hoping for a huge recovery in the markets, say that such projections are too pessimistic, and that cutting benefits for future workers must suffice, given laws and provisions in state constitutions that make membership in a state pension fund a contractual relationship that cannot be breached.
Lawyers, though, are raising the possibility that those laws are being misinterpreted.
“It makes no sense to suggest that an employee who works for the state for a single day has acquired a right to have future pension benefits calculated for the next 20 to 40 years under whatever method was in effect on that single first day of service,” states a legal memorandum prepared for the Commercial Club of Chicago, which is concerned that a public pension collapse would badly damage the city’s business climate.
The club’s members include senior executives of big companies, like Boeing, Aon, Kraft, Motorola and I.B.M., that have frozen pensions or slowed the rates at which their workers build up benefits.
Some of those cuts set off titanic battles. The most famous was at I.B.M., which changed its pension plan just when many of its older workers were about to earn sharply higher retirement benefits. Aggrieved workers sued, but after a long battle, a federal appellate court found that the cuts were legal.
“An employer is free to move from one legal plan to another legal plan, provided that it does not diminish vested interests,” or the benefits workers have already earned, wrote Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. He did not distinguish between corporate employers and states.
Colorado is basing its legal defense, in part, on a 1961 state supreme court ruling that said pension cuts for current workers were allowed if “actuarially necessary,” and will argue that it applies to retirees as well. Other states may not have such legal tools.
In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone a different route, bargaining with the 12 unions that represent public employees. Last week four of them agreed to let the state cut its own contributions by requiring current workers to pay sharply more for the same pensions. The workers will contribute 10 percent of their pay, in some cases double the previous rate, to the state pension fund. Some other states are raising employee contributions as well, though less sharply.
In New Jersey, the administration of Gov. Christopher J. Christie recently imposed pension cuts on future hires, but has been quietly looking into whether it could also reduce the benefits that current employees expect to accumulate in the coming years.
“Can they change the benefit formula going forward? Sure. It’s not etched in stone,” said Edward Thomson III, an actuary and trustee of the New Jersey pension system who was asked to offer an opinion on whether New Jersey could adopt the federal pension law — the one that covers companies — as its governing statute.
A state assemblyman, Declan J. O’Scanlon Jr., recently introduced a bill to ratchet back a 9 percent pension increase that the state gave most workers in 2001.
“I think this will pass constitutional muster,” Mr. O’Scanlon said. “Otherwise, I fear the whole system will fall apart. Nine years — we’re out of money.”
Amy Schoenfeld contributed reporting.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Unsustainable Debt - Today's Soapbox Rant.
Brace yourself folks it is going to be a bumpy ride "AMERICA'S NATIONAL DEBTTOPS $13,000,000,000,000; DEBT PER TAXPAYER - $117,975;US DEBT TO GDP RATIO - 90.3%" Cloward and Piven and all the other communist pigs must be jumping for joy. Those of you on public pensions look out and taxpayers too. In the end only one will win and it is going to be messy until this is resolved.
Jim and I have been saying for over 7 years these pensions were going to bankrupt the States and boy did they just call us names and liars. Sadly Jim and I were right. It's a spending problem not a funding problem. If these people were not so damned greedy and they were fiscally responsible this whole mess would have never happened. This was all done without character and integrity, it was a bunch of foxes running the hen house. Ignorance just does not cut it in my book.
Quote of the Day - "I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy." T. Jefferson
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
Jim and I have been saying for over 7 years these pensions were going to bankrupt the States and boy did they just call us names and liars. Sadly Jim and I were right. It's a spending problem not a funding problem. If these people were not so damned greedy and they were fiscally responsible this whole mess would have never happened. This was all done without character and integrity, it was a bunch of foxes running the hen house. Ignorance just does not cut it in my book.
Quote of the Day - "I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy." T. Jefferson
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Blaming the Unions does not Cut it Anymore
You can not blame the unions without blaming the teachers. Year after year they supported the union and approved unsustainable contracts. If you are a teacher who can't see that the system is unsustainable you do not have the capability of actually educating children and clearly that can be seeing by the output and results in public schools.
The following piece appeared in the Daily Herald. Be sure to visit the Daily Herald website to view the comments.
Quote of the Day - " 'I believe what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way. "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the charts crazy." Steve Jobs
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
Teachers, public grow farther apart
If all the hardworking teachers were to speak out against the damage their unions and those who abuse their tenured positions have done to the integrity of the teaching profession, there would be more support from the public.
However, taking a paid day off to go to Springfield and demand that our property taxes be raised to supply more money while claiming "it's for the children" is doing nothing to encourage this support.
These dealings drive a wedge between the public and educators even deeper and it doesn't seem like anyone but the taxpayers care. It's unfortunate that the actions of some are creating this negative perception that includes nearly everyone in education.
The teachers, their union and the D211 school board know this and are doing absolutely nothing to change it. In fact, the D211 school board views the property tax payers as "complainers".
Until this "what's for me" ideology changes, teachers, unions and school boards will be viewed by the public as greedy, selfish entities. In addition, teachers, unions and school boards are seen as being counterproductive to their cause by utilizing these self-serving tactics. They are behaving as though their profession is nothing short of saintly.
The teachers union's funding of a board member's campaign is an irresponsible act on the part of that board member. The reasoning behind this statement is obvious.
Let's all try to work together to bring this situation back in balance. Right now the school board's methods of negotiating labor costs with the union have gotten out of control and do not reflect economic reality.
John Parker
Schaumburg
The following piece appeared in the Daily Herald. Be sure to visit the Daily Herald website to view the comments.
Quote of the Day - " 'I believe what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way. "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the charts crazy." Steve Jobs
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
Teachers, public grow farther apart
If all the hardworking teachers were to speak out against the damage their unions and those who abuse their tenured positions have done to the integrity of the teaching profession, there would be more support from the public.
However, taking a paid day off to go to Springfield and demand that our property taxes be raised to supply more money while claiming "it's for the children" is doing nothing to encourage this support.
These dealings drive a wedge between the public and educators even deeper and it doesn't seem like anyone but the taxpayers care. It's unfortunate that the actions of some are creating this negative perception that includes nearly everyone in education.
The teachers, their union and the D211 school board know this and are doing absolutely nothing to change it. In fact, the D211 school board views the property tax payers as "complainers".
Until this "what's for me" ideology changes, teachers, unions and school boards will be viewed by the public as greedy, selfish entities. In addition, teachers, unions and school boards are seen as being counterproductive to their cause by utilizing these self-serving tactics. They are behaving as though their profession is nothing short of saintly.
The teachers union's funding of a board member's campaign is an irresponsible act on the part of that board member. The reasoning behind this statement is obvious.
Let's all try to work together to bring this situation back in balance. Right now the school board's methods of negotiating labor costs with the union have gotten out of control and do not reflect economic reality.
John Parker
Schaumburg
Friday, May 7, 2010
Bankruptcy? Say it is not so.
We did not see this coming, NOT! The following piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Be sure to visit the Wall Street Journal to see the picture associated with the story.
Jim and I have been reporting that States will bankrupt themselves if they do not control spending at least since 2005. If you are a company or work for a company making their living off the taxpayer teat there is a chance you won't get paid. Easy money is a suckers bet.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
Illinois Budget Woes Come to a Boil
By AMY MERRICK
Illinois lawmakers were in disarray Thursday as they groped for stopgap measures to address a $13 billion deficit equaling nearly half of the state's general-fund revenue.
The state faces one of the nation's worst budget crises, spilled over in part from the broader national economic crunch, and its current bond ratings lag only California's. But the confusion in the legislature indicates that serious steps to fix state finances won't be taken until after the November elections—if then.
Most states have addressed or still face gaps in their budgets totaling $196 billion for fiscal year 2010, while tax revenue declined in the final quarter of 2009 in 39 of the states for which data is available.
Illinois lawmakers have little appetite for drastic spending cuts. An income-tax increase proposed by Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is going nowhere. Even temporary steps, such as borrowing to make pension payments, have stalled. Illinois is months late on many of its bills and has no plan for catching up.
The legislature may push the problem to the governor's office by granting Mr. Quinn emergency budget powers and adjourning Friday, about three weeks earlier than usual. A bill under consideration in the state House would give Mr. Quinn greater leeway to shift money among state funds and to require agencies to set aside part of their budgets now in case of future cuts.
A state House committee on Thursday passed a cigarette-tax increase that would generate $320 million by raising the state tax from 98 cents a pack to $1.98 a pack over two years. The House also is considering authorizing a sale of expected tobacco-settlement funds, which could bring in $1.2 billion, said State Sen. Donne Trotter, a Democrat.
House Minority Leader Tom Cross called the tobacco-settlement plan "a gimmick" and said he and other Republicans oppose borrowing the pension payment. "We are having the same conversations today that we had a year ago about the need for reform," he said.
Regardless of its final form, the budget will leave the state borrowing for short-term operations and postponing its bills.
"We are lucky in that we still can borrow," Mr. Trotter said, noting that lawmakers responded to rating-agency concerns last month by reducing pension benefits and lifting the retirement age for new state employees to 67 from 60. Lawmakers also are weighing the idea of postponing pension payments for the first half of the fiscal year until January, Mr. Trotter said.
Illinois's problems are an exaggerated version of dynamics playing out across the U.S. All states except Vermont have at least a limited requirement to balance their budgets. In practice, many states rely on one-time revenue windfalls or short-term borrowing to scrape from one fiscal year to the next.
State budgets typically lag the national economy by several years, and the recession has decimated income-tax and sales-tax revenue. Lawmakers often don't want to aggravate voters by raising taxes during an election year.
But legislatures find cutting expenses politically difficult, too. State budgets are dominated by education and health care programs that many voters cherish.
As a result, Illinois, along with other states, routinely has postponed paying its bills, shortchanged pension plans and spent more than it collects in revenue.
It's possible lawmakers will keep working on the budget until they are required to adjourn at the end of the month. Rikeesha Phelon, a spokeswoman for Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, said Friday's deadline was "just a goal."
Mr. Quinn presented a budget in March that would still leave the state with a $10.6 billion deficit. His plan projected a deficit of $4.7 billion for the coming fiscal year beginning July 1—which he planned to cover through borrowing—and a $5.9 billion deficit carried over from the current budget.
The governor also proposed cutting expenses by $1.5 billion and raising the state income tax 1.5 percentage points, to 4.5% from 3%. He said the tax hike would be used to avert tens of thousands of teacher layoffs. A different proposal to raise income-tax rates passed the state Senate last year but has stalled in the House.
Any hopes that the national economic recovery would help the budget discussions were dashed this week when Illinois disclosed that revenue for April —when most citizens pay taxes—fell more than 15% from the same month a year ago, or $501 million, in part because of a $345 million drop in federal aid. Gross personal income-tax receipts, a major revenue source, dropped $103 million, or 8.1%.
Many states are likely to report similar disappointments. California officials said this week that April personal income tax-collections lagged projections by 30%. Federal estimates don't bode well for states, either.
As of April 30, federal non-withheld income taxes for April fell 17.6% from the same month a year earlier, said a report Tuesday from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York.
Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes said in his April report that the state's cash position for the quarter ending June 30 "looks exceedingly difficult." By June 10, Illinois must repay $1.75 billion, plus interest, in short-term borrowing.
Meanwhile, the state still owes billions of dollars to hospitals, universities, social-service providers and others. Mr. Hynes said the state's backlog of unpaid bills probably will exceed $5.5 billion at the end of June.
"Eventually, many providers of essential state services may be unable to continue their operations at current levels, and those vulnerable segments of the population to whom they provide services will suffer the consequences," he wrote.
Write to Amy Merrick at amy.merrick@wsj.com
Jim and I have been reporting that States will bankrupt themselves if they do not control spending at least since 2005. If you are a company or work for a company making their living off the taxpayer teat there is a chance you won't get paid. Easy money is a suckers bet.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
Illinois Budget Woes Come to a Boil
By AMY MERRICK
Illinois lawmakers were in disarray Thursday as they groped for stopgap measures to address a $13 billion deficit equaling nearly half of the state's general-fund revenue.
The state faces one of the nation's worst budget crises, spilled over in part from the broader national economic crunch, and its current bond ratings lag only California's. But the confusion in the legislature indicates that serious steps to fix state finances won't be taken until after the November elections—if then.
Most states have addressed or still face gaps in their budgets totaling $196 billion for fiscal year 2010, while tax revenue declined in the final quarter of 2009 in 39 of the states for which data is available.
Illinois lawmakers have little appetite for drastic spending cuts. An income-tax increase proposed by Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is going nowhere. Even temporary steps, such as borrowing to make pension payments, have stalled. Illinois is months late on many of its bills and has no plan for catching up.
The legislature may push the problem to the governor's office by granting Mr. Quinn emergency budget powers and adjourning Friday, about three weeks earlier than usual. A bill under consideration in the state House would give Mr. Quinn greater leeway to shift money among state funds and to require agencies to set aside part of their budgets now in case of future cuts.
A state House committee on Thursday passed a cigarette-tax increase that would generate $320 million by raising the state tax from 98 cents a pack to $1.98 a pack over two years. The House also is considering authorizing a sale of expected tobacco-settlement funds, which could bring in $1.2 billion, said State Sen. Donne Trotter, a Democrat.
House Minority Leader Tom Cross called the tobacco-settlement plan "a gimmick" and said he and other Republicans oppose borrowing the pension payment. "We are having the same conversations today that we had a year ago about the need for reform," he said.
Regardless of its final form, the budget will leave the state borrowing for short-term operations and postponing its bills.
"We are lucky in that we still can borrow," Mr. Trotter said, noting that lawmakers responded to rating-agency concerns last month by reducing pension benefits and lifting the retirement age for new state employees to 67 from 60. Lawmakers also are weighing the idea of postponing pension payments for the first half of the fiscal year until January, Mr. Trotter said.
Illinois's problems are an exaggerated version of dynamics playing out across the U.S. All states except Vermont have at least a limited requirement to balance their budgets. In practice, many states rely on one-time revenue windfalls or short-term borrowing to scrape from one fiscal year to the next.
State budgets typically lag the national economy by several years, and the recession has decimated income-tax and sales-tax revenue. Lawmakers often don't want to aggravate voters by raising taxes during an election year.
But legislatures find cutting expenses politically difficult, too. State budgets are dominated by education and health care programs that many voters cherish.
As a result, Illinois, along with other states, routinely has postponed paying its bills, shortchanged pension plans and spent more than it collects in revenue.
It's possible lawmakers will keep working on the budget until they are required to adjourn at the end of the month. Rikeesha Phelon, a spokeswoman for Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, said Friday's deadline was "just a goal."
Mr. Quinn presented a budget in March that would still leave the state with a $10.6 billion deficit. His plan projected a deficit of $4.7 billion for the coming fiscal year beginning July 1—which he planned to cover through borrowing—and a $5.9 billion deficit carried over from the current budget.
The governor also proposed cutting expenses by $1.5 billion and raising the state income tax 1.5 percentage points, to 4.5% from 3%. He said the tax hike would be used to avert tens of thousands of teacher layoffs. A different proposal to raise income-tax rates passed the state Senate last year but has stalled in the House.
Any hopes that the national economic recovery would help the budget discussions were dashed this week when Illinois disclosed that revenue for April —when most citizens pay taxes—fell more than 15% from the same month a year ago, or $501 million, in part because of a $345 million drop in federal aid. Gross personal income-tax receipts, a major revenue source, dropped $103 million, or 8.1%.
Many states are likely to report similar disappointments. California officials said this week that April personal income tax-collections lagged projections by 30%. Federal estimates don't bode well for states, either.
As of April 30, federal non-withheld income taxes for April fell 17.6% from the same month a year earlier, said a report Tuesday from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York.
Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes said in his April report that the state's cash position for the quarter ending June 30 "looks exceedingly difficult." By June 10, Illinois must repay $1.75 billion, plus interest, in short-term borrowing.
Meanwhile, the state still owes billions of dollars to hospitals, universities, social-service providers and others. Mr. Hynes said the state's backlog of unpaid bills probably will exceed $5.5 billion at the end of June.
"Eventually, many providers of essential state services may be unable to continue their operations at current levels, and those vulnerable segments of the population to whom they provide services will suffer the consequences," he wrote.
Write to Amy Merrick at amy.merrick@wsj.com
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Saturday Night Live does a skit on public employee benefits
California Pension Reform posted Saturday Night Live's skit on public employees benefits. I laughed so loud watching it because it is so true. To view the video visit California Pension Reform.com.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
This Was Bound To Happen, They Were Living Beyond Their Means
The following piece appeared on CNNMoney.com. If school districts had been living within their means, increased spending at the rate of CPI or inflation and gone to defined contribution retirement plans instead of defined benefit plans schools would not be in this mess. Instead of commonsense, greed ruled the day.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
More than 80% of school districts to cut jobs
By Blake Ellis, staff reporterMay 4, 2010: 3:41 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- More than 80% of U.S. school districts are expected to eliminate jobs and more than half will likely freeze hiring during the upcoming school year, an education organization said Tuesday.
Based on a survey of school administrators from 49 states, a total of 275,000 education jobs are expected to be cut in 2011, according to the American Association of School Administrators.
"Faced with continued budgetary constraints, school leaders across the nation are forced to consider an unprecedented level of layoffs that would negatively impact economic recovery and deal a devastating blow to public education," said AASA Executive Director Dan Domenech.
While the jobs picture begins to stabilize across the broader economy, in its previous survey, the AASA projected job cuts in the education field between 2009 and 2011 to exceed the jobs created by the government in that same period.
In the survey released Tuesday, AASA said job cuts in the 2010 to 2011 school year alone would nearly negate the estimated 300,000 jobs saved or created by the government.
"This survey complements the results of our latest economic impact survey to truly illustrate that schools have yet to feel the economic relief and stability that is appearing in other sectors," said Domenech.
Of the projected job cuts, about 54% are teacher positions, 9% are support personnel, such as nurses and guidance counselors, 5% are administrative and 31% are classified, a category including maintenance employees and cafeteria workers.
The sample of Kindergarten through 12th grade public schools used in the survey accounts for about 11% of the nation's school districts.
And while 48 million students are expected to attend school next year, these significant job cuts are projected to raise the average student-to-teacher ratio from 15:1 to 17:1, AASA said.
For those districts that don't cut jobs, it's likely that they will freeze hiring instead, with 53% of districts projecting that they will not be bringing on new employees in the next school year.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.
More than 80% of school districts to cut jobs
By Blake Ellis, staff reporterMay 4, 2010: 3:41 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- More than 80% of U.S. school districts are expected to eliminate jobs and more than half will likely freeze hiring during the upcoming school year, an education organization said Tuesday.
Based on a survey of school administrators from 49 states, a total of 275,000 education jobs are expected to be cut in 2011, according to the American Association of School Administrators.
"Faced with continued budgetary constraints, school leaders across the nation are forced to consider an unprecedented level of layoffs that would negatively impact economic recovery and deal a devastating blow to public education," said AASA Executive Director Dan Domenech.
While the jobs picture begins to stabilize across the broader economy, in its previous survey, the AASA projected job cuts in the education field between 2009 and 2011 to exceed the jobs created by the government in that same period.
In the survey released Tuesday, AASA said job cuts in the 2010 to 2011 school year alone would nearly negate the estimated 300,000 jobs saved or created by the government.
"This survey complements the results of our latest economic impact survey to truly illustrate that schools have yet to feel the economic relief and stability that is appearing in other sectors," said Domenech.
Of the projected job cuts, about 54% are teacher positions, 9% are support personnel, such as nurses and guidance counselors, 5% are administrative and 31% are classified, a category including maintenance employees and cafeteria workers.
The sample of Kindergarten through 12th grade public schools used in the survey accounts for about 11% of the nation's school districts.
And while 48 million students are expected to attend school next year, these significant job cuts are projected to raise the average student-to-teacher ratio from 15:1 to 17:1, AASA said.
For those districts that don't cut jobs, it's likely that they will freeze hiring instead, with 53% of districts projecting that they will not be bringing on new employees in the next school year.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Barreling Towards the Same Fate
The following piece appeared on the Financial Times website.
We are barreling down the same path of destruction unless we change how our public employees including teachers are paid, when they retire and how their pensions are calculated. Decent teachers and public employees with a good sense of character must educate their fellow members and encourage reform now before it is too late.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Greece agrees €24bn austerity package
By Kerin Hope in Athens
Published: April 29 2010 22:06 | Last updated: April 30 2010 08:10
Greece has agreed the outline of a €24bn austerity package, including a three-year wage freeze for public sector workers, in return for a multibillion-euro loan from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, according to people familiar with the talks.
Final details of the measures, which were intended to slash the budget deficit by 10-11 percentage points of gross domestic product over the next three years, were still being worked out, a senior government official said.
Negotiations with officials from the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank are due to be completed at the weekend and the measures will be presented for approval by the Greek parliament next week.
The package also includes an increase in value-added tax, the second this year. “Discussions are still taking place on which of the three [VAT] tiers will be increased,” said the official.
Greek bond and stock markets soared on Thursday in what has been a roller-coaster ride for investors this week.
Greek two-year bond yields, which have an inverse relationship with prices, fell more than 3 percentage points to 12.74 per cent, while the stock market rose 7.14 per cent as confidence grew after it was reported on Wednesday that the EU and IMF were preparing a €120bn loan to bail out Athens.
Greece faces exceptionally strict monitoring by the EU and IMF because of its poor record of implementing previous economic reform programmes.
A Greek official said an IMF team visited “spending” ministries to examine details of yearly outlays and pored over the national accounts at the finance ministry during the 10-day negotiations.
“It was a big IMF team, and they went over the budget with a fine-toothed comb,” the official said.
Efforts by Greek negotiators to delay timetables and dilute some public sector reforms made little headway, he said.
“Given the seriousness of the situation, there weren’t really any arguments to be made for further delays,” the official said.
George Papandreou, prime minister, was last week forced to activate the EU-IMF rescue package after three previous rounds of austerity measures failed to convince financial markets that Greece could bring its public finances under control.
On top of the wage freeze, public sector workers will lose their “13th and 14th month” salaries, paid at Christmas and Easter, and see further cuts in allowances.
Andreas Loverdos, social affairs minister, told the Financial Times that pensioners would also lose seasonal bonuses as part of an overhaul of the underfunded state pension system. The average retirement age would be raised from 53 at present to 67, he said.
“The timetable for the pension measures is still being debated, but there isn’t much room for manoeuvre – this is about saving the country from collapse,” Mr Loverdos said.
Greece’s swollen public sector, which employs about 13 per cent of the workforce, will be gradually reduced through a recruitment freeze, the abolition of short-term contracts and closures of hundreds of outdated state entities.
Mr Papandreou outlined the measures in meetings with employers’ associations and trade union leaders on Thursday.
Emerging from the prime minister’s office, Yiannis Panagopoulos, head of the private sector umbrella union GSEE, warned of confrontation ahead.
Structural measures aimed at boosting competitiveness include the opening of “closed-shop” professions – from truck-driving to employment agencies – and a fast-track privatisation programme.
Three-year reform programme
Two to three percentage points increase in value-added tax
Three-year public sector pay freeze; recruitment frozen
Abolition of ‘13th and 14th monthly salary’ for public sector workers; 5 per cent cut in allowances
No renewals for short-term public sector contracts
Closure of more than 800 out-dated state entities
Opening up of more than 60 ‘closed-shop’ professions
Overhaul of pension system: raising average retirement age to 67 for men and women; cutting state corporation pensions.
Privatisation: sales of state corporations; flotations on Athens stock exchange; sales and leasing of state-owned properties
Additional reporting by David Oakley in London
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
To see related stories go to the Financial Times website.
We are barreling down the same path of destruction unless we change how our public employees including teachers are paid, when they retire and how their pensions are calculated. Decent teachers and public employees with a good sense of character must educate their fellow members and encourage reform now before it is too late.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Greece agrees €24bn austerity package
By Kerin Hope in Athens
Published: April 29 2010 22:06 | Last updated: April 30 2010 08:10
Greece has agreed the outline of a €24bn austerity package, including a three-year wage freeze for public sector workers, in return for a multibillion-euro loan from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, according to people familiar with the talks.
Final details of the measures, which were intended to slash the budget deficit by 10-11 percentage points of gross domestic product over the next three years, were still being worked out, a senior government official said.
Negotiations with officials from the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank are due to be completed at the weekend and the measures will be presented for approval by the Greek parliament next week.
The package also includes an increase in value-added tax, the second this year. “Discussions are still taking place on which of the three [VAT] tiers will be increased,” said the official.
Greek bond and stock markets soared on Thursday in what has been a roller-coaster ride for investors this week.
Greek two-year bond yields, which have an inverse relationship with prices, fell more than 3 percentage points to 12.74 per cent, while the stock market rose 7.14 per cent as confidence grew after it was reported on Wednesday that the EU and IMF were preparing a €120bn loan to bail out Athens.
Greece faces exceptionally strict monitoring by the EU and IMF because of its poor record of implementing previous economic reform programmes.
A Greek official said an IMF team visited “spending” ministries to examine details of yearly outlays and pored over the national accounts at the finance ministry during the 10-day negotiations.
“It was a big IMF team, and they went over the budget with a fine-toothed comb,” the official said.
Efforts by Greek negotiators to delay timetables and dilute some public sector reforms made little headway, he said.
“Given the seriousness of the situation, there weren’t really any arguments to be made for further delays,” the official said.
George Papandreou, prime minister, was last week forced to activate the EU-IMF rescue package after three previous rounds of austerity measures failed to convince financial markets that Greece could bring its public finances under control.
On top of the wage freeze, public sector workers will lose their “13th and 14th month” salaries, paid at Christmas and Easter, and see further cuts in allowances.
Andreas Loverdos, social affairs minister, told the Financial Times that pensioners would also lose seasonal bonuses as part of an overhaul of the underfunded state pension system. The average retirement age would be raised from 53 at present to 67, he said.
“The timetable for the pension measures is still being debated, but there isn’t much room for manoeuvre – this is about saving the country from collapse,” Mr Loverdos said.
Greece’s swollen public sector, which employs about 13 per cent of the workforce, will be gradually reduced through a recruitment freeze, the abolition of short-term contracts and closures of hundreds of outdated state entities.
Mr Papandreou outlined the measures in meetings with employers’ associations and trade union leaders on Thursday.
Emerging from the prime minister’s office, Yiannis Panagopoulos, head of the private sector umbrella union GSEE, warned of confrontation ahead.
Structural measures aimed at boosting competitiveness include the opening of “closed-shop” professions – from truck-driving to employment agencies – and a fast-track privatisation programme.
Three-year reform programme
Two to three percentage points increase in value-added tax
Three-year public sector pay freeze; recruitment frozen
Abolition of ‘13th and 14th monthly salary’ for public sector workers; 5 per cent cut in allowances
No renewals for short-term public sector contracts
Closure of more than 800 out-dated state entities
Opening up of more than 60 ‘closed-shop’ professions
Overhaul of pension system: raising average retirement age to 67 for men and women; cutting state corporation pensions.
Privatisation: sales of state corporations; flotations on Athens stock exchange; sales and leasing of state-owned properties
Additional reporting by David Oakley in London
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
To see related stories go to the Financial Times website.
Friday, March 12, 2010
What Happens When Teachers' Unions Get too Greedy
The following piece appeared in the Northwest Herald. The article speaks for itself. It is refreshing to see the editorial staff of the Northwest Herald come to our side and so strongly too. Seven years ago you would never see an article like this in the Northwest Herald, they would be more likely to speak out against Jim and I.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
D-26 union must do part to pare losses
If there ever was any doubt, Monday night’s District 26 school board meeting put the debate to rest.
We now know that, for the District 26 teachers’ union, it’s not about the kids.
Maybe it was before. It certainly isn’t now.
Greed?
Yes, it’s about that.
An unwillingness to spare some of their colleagues from the unemployment line?
Yes, that’s part of it, too.
But the kids? No. Not even close.
District 26 is faced with cutting $5.4 million from its budget next fiscal year.
More than 70 teaching positions are on the chopping block.
The school board revealed during Monday night’s meeting that it twice had asked the teachers’ union to re-open its contract.
Twice it asked the union to offer concessions in an effort to save some of these 70 jobs.
Twice, the union said no thank you.
The school board asked again Monday night, and presented three options.
Option one involves a simple salary freeze, saving the district $527,599.
It would allow the district to save five teachers – one art teacher, one music teacher, one physical education teacher, and two classroom teachers.
Option two freezes teacher salaries and would require teachers to pay 20 percent of their single medical coverage, resulting in $739,149 in savings. In addition to the teachers saved in option one, three more would be spared – in music, physical education and a classroom.
Option three includes everything in option two plus a rollback of the 2010 salary increase, resulting in $1.36 million in savings. The eight teachers spared in option two would be joined by nine classroom teachers.
Any of these options would be better for the students of District 26 than eliminating the full slate of teacher positions now on the table.
So were members of the the teachers’ union willing to discuss these options, to consider making a slight sacrifice for the sake of the children?
Not hardly. At least not the union’s leadership.
“I don’t know how you can sleep at night,” a member of the union’s impact bargaining board told school board members, followed by, “You have made [this] extremely difficult, if not impossible.”
Impossible how?
The fact is, tens of millions of Americans have had to give plenty back in the midst of one of the worst economic periods of a generation. And with the state of Illinois in such dire financial straits, all public employees should expect to give something back.
We implore the District 26 teachers’ union to stop its posturing.
We implore the union’s leadership and membership to do the right thing here.
In the end, it should be about the kids.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Are Teachers Underpaid?
You decide. No wonder Illinois' Pension System is a Trillion dollars underfunded. Any teachers worth the paper their diploma is written on knows you can not pay teachers like this and not bankrupt a State.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Top 100 paid Teachers in Illinois.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Top 100 paid Teachers in Illinois.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Those Who Voted for the Children are Suckers
It was never for the children and those who voted for the children are suckers and took the intelligent voters down with them. Public schools were hijacked long ago by the people who work in them, they have hijacked them and made them their own entitlement programs. The following piece appears on the American Thinker.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Taxpayers: Eat your hearts out, suckers
By Ed Lasky
A looming problem has received far too little coverage from a liberal-dominated media: the power of public pensions to destroy our nation's finances and ransack our wallets.
For many years, government workers have enjoyed munificent benefits: relatively high salaries for lenient work demands; gold-plated retirement benefits that allow most of them to "retire" at a young age with very high pensions and generous health care benefits. Days off for holidays that few of us would even recognize.
All courtesy of us: the lowly taxpayer toiling away at jobs that may vanish at a moment's notice and that certainly don't guarantee the value of any retirement package. Not true for the ever-expanding ranks of government workers.
A recent Forbes magazine article highlights the absurd benefits that public sector workers enjoy on the job and off the job when they retire. The article, describing the leisurely life of retired government employees, could be lifted from the pages of Travel and Leisure magazine. The poster boy for the problem? A retired 42 year old policeman lollygagging on a beach, comfortable with his $2 million pension.
But there are more tales from across our land: a fireman who can be "retired" at 55, collect a pension and still collect a salary while keeping the job he "retired" from (don't ask about the logic-this is the government); a thirty eight year old teacher in New Jersey earning twice the state ‘s average income who works 10 months a year and barely contributes to a pension that will allow early retirement with quite the golden nest egg; California prison guards earning $300,000 a year.
In my own area, the superintendent of a small, suburban school district earns -- well, makes -- over $400,000 a year and has a slew of benefits to boot (medical care during his retirement, 100% comped for him and his family) . Remember that story when teachers' unions decry low salaries.
These anecdotal stories of staggering benefits received by the government worker elites are companied by reams of statistics that display the ticking time bomb of government salaries and golden parachutes. Forbes notes:
In public-sector America things just get better and better. The common presumption is that public servants forgo high wages in exchange for safe jobs and benefits. The reality is they get all three. State and local government workers get paid an average of $25.30 an hour, which is 33% higher than the private sector's $19, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Throw in pensions and other benefits and the gap widens to 42%.
Four in five public-sector workers have lifetime pensions, versus only one in five in the private sector.
Those pensions are guaranteed by state law, regardless of how pension investments fare, because you, the taxpayer, guarantee them with your tax dollars. It is the law, made by our legislators or incorporated in state constitutions.
The problem is national in scope and severity. Often public sector employees claim early retirement for disabilities -- and sometimes find loopholes to claim disabilities when none in fact exist -- and they are able to work in other jobs. Pensions are often boosted by goosing final years' salaries that are used to determine lifetime pension levels. The practice is called "spiking" and recently prompted criticism of a California fire chief who, three days before announcing his retirement (at the grand old age of 51, no less), had his salary suddenly increased so as to boost his annual pension to $241,000. The practice is unfair because employees or employers contribute to pensions based on salaries. When a salary is boosted around retirement, a shortfall is created between what a pension system has collected for an employee and what it must pay out for his lifetime.
Cooking the books to goose public pensions? What astute fiscal management! This problem is exacerbated by the fact that politicians use faulty and overly optimistic projections about future investment returns to justify high pension payouts. Politicians can run but they cannot hide for too long even if they rely on Stupid Debt Tricks to disguise the problems.
Remember the scandals over welfare queens and executive salaries? These are dwarfed by the ticking time bomb of inflated government salaries and crippling pension obligations for us to pay off in our taxes.
Already, communities are declaring bankruptcy, done in by skyrocketing public employee salaries and pension costs. We have only glimpsed the future and it is colored red-in more ways than one. As government revenues sink and government obligations rise, the red ink will spread across the nation; as will steps by Democrats to take our savings. We are only at Act One of this tragedy to come.
How bad is the problem?
This "Hidden Pension Fiasco" will cost us over one trillion dollars. Barack Obama and fellow traveling Democrats will hoist this problem on our shoulders via tax hikes yet to come. This trillion will be to benefit government workers, a key Democrat constituency, who know who butter their bread at our expense. Forbes:
"The tax hikes you face [to fully fund public pensions] will have a much more tangible impact on your financial life than anything a Social Security fix will entail," says Alicia Munnell, who runs Boston College's retirement center..
Government employees could care less about how well the investments backing their pensions fare, since they are guaranteed. Nor do they care who invests them. But we should. Pension funds are often turned over to politically connected firms, who may know the right people, but not the right way to invest. Our once and former car czar, Steven Rattner, is embroiled in what looks like a classic pay-to-play scandal involving politically connected investment boutiques being rewarded by politicians with deals to invest government pensions.
Money can be spread around by the pension fund managers to help politicians win campaigns. If their returns come up short, well, who cares? The taxpayers pay the price.
Why do government workers enjoy such sweet deals? They determine their own benefit packages, for one. But another fact plays a role: their powerful union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which can devote its resources -- money, votes, volunteer labor during campaigns -- to help elect Democrats win elections. The quid pro quo is sweetheart contracts that reward union members, and punish us, for the rest of their lives.
This is disgraceful.
Our money should not fund dream retirement packages for government workers. Government workers should not lead lives insulated from the risks and travails most of the public must bear. Are politicians too in hock to public unions to care that we may go in hock to fulfill their absurd deals?
Who will stop them?
Some far-sighted people are responding to this crisis in the making. These include an activist group seeking to publicize the problem websites that publicize the problem; even apostates who feel they have unjustly benefited and are outraged at ways public employees milk taxpayers. .
Even a legendary auto union leader, Barry Bluestone, sees risks of taxpayer revulsion leading to taxpayer revolt. How fitting that his op-ed (A Future for Public Unions) ran in the Boston Globe, home of the original Tea Party. Bluestone warns that the future of public unions is in jeopardy should they follow the practices that helped wreck the American-owned auto industry. He looks back at how auto unions often:
... insisted on job classifications and work rules that undermined efficiency and compromised the industry's competitiveness.
He sees history repeating itself:
Will public-sector unions follow the same path? Nationwide, these unions represent over 35 percent of federal, state, and local employees, roughly the same as in 1980. Over the years, they have won improved wages and benefits for their members. Yet the leaders of many of these unions, particularly in Massachusetts, seem to be setting the stage for the same kind of deterioration we see in unions like the UAW.
Teachers unions refuse to make changes in work practices that could help improve the chances of children succeeding in school. Police unions fight against lowering the cost of details at construction sites. The MBTA union and others representing transport workers lobby vociferously against reforming the state's transportation system. Municipal unions refuse to permit their local communities to join the Group Insurance Commission that would save their towns millions without compromising the quality of their members' medical care.
As a result, between 2000 and 2008, the price of state and local public services has increased by 41 percent nationally compared with 27 percent in private services. Even in the face of the worst fiscal crisis in decades, many state and local union leaders refuse to consider a wage freeze that could help preserve more of their members' jobs.
Bluestone notes that citizens and ultimately their elected representatives, will object to tax increases to pay for bloated union contracts and poor public service. Bluestone does not address the public pension time bomb that will only make our problems worse.
Of course, the key point is the need to make our elected representatives themselves pay for the steps they have taken over the years to enrich public unions at our expense. That is the only type of payback they understand: our votes. They should not come as cheaply or carelessly as they have in the past. They have cost us too much already.
Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Seems Redundant but here it goes -
The insatiable beast will get even bigger and harder to beat back. The Teachers' Unions are getting a hefty payback for getting Obama elected and we the taxpayers and generations to come will pay the price. The following piece appears on The American Spectator website.
Quote of the Day - "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children." - Albert Shanker, Former President of the American Federation of Teachers
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Teachers Union Spending Spree
By RiShawn Biddle on 1.29.10
For President Barack Obama, Scott Brown's victory over Martha Coakley in the U.S. Senate special election could at the very least lead to a drastically scaled-down version of his healthcare reform plan. But for the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and suburban school districts, it may mean at least $27 billion and perhaps, even more.
Even as Obama proclaims he has listened to voter discontent by freezing some domestic spending, the president made sure to assure teachers unions (along with school districts and the school reform movement) that more federal money would flow into their coffers. This includes his announcement in his State of the Union address of a $4 billion increase in Title I funding as well as another $1.5 billion for the federal Race to the Top school reform effort.
Skeptics of federal education policy aren't fooled. Declares Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute: "[Obama will] be driving this country deeper into debt for no good reason at all…unless of course you consider swelling the ranks of the public school employee unions a good reason."
But the spending spree -- and the catering to the NEA and AFT -- isn't likely to stop with a few lousy federal ducats. Even before Coakley, the allegedly prosecutorial misconduct-prone Massachusetts attorney general, plunged into a series of gaffes that gave the Massachusetts state senator the election, House Democrats were considering a new round of stimulus subsidies. The highlight of this scheme: A plan to ladle $23 billion into school districts in order to keep their teachers on the payroll. This would be on top of $70 billion in so-called "state fiscal stabilization" funds poured into state and school district coffers last year. But centrist Democrats in the Senate such as Evan Bayh of Indiana put the kibosh on the new plan.
Since then, Democrats have seen congressional incumbents such as Bryan Dorgan and Christopher Dodd (along with governors such as Colorado's Bill Ritter) throw in their towels for this year's midterm races. Defeats in last year's general election races in New Jersey and Virginia also have Democrats wondering if they can keep their wide congressional majorities. Now there is the defeat in Massachusetts. This, along with other tough congressional, Senate and statehouse races in November, means that Democrats are scrambling to secure all the war chests (and grassroots supporters) within their traditional base of allies.
The NEA and AFT are more than ready to help. After all, their vast campaign war chests (including $66 million during the 2007-2008 election cycle) and 4.6 million rank-and-file public school employees gives them the kind of electioneering heft that few of the other players within Democratic Party politics -- including school reformers -- can ever muster. The raises their members have received so far, along with the growth in the teaching ranks, have filled their coffers even more. In 2009, the two unions raised $15 million for the 2010 campaign cycle, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics; this is more than double the amount raised a year before the 2008 elections.
Thanks to last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that abolished limits on campaign finance spending by corporations, the NEA and AFT will have an even larger presence. The fact that other issues with which the two unions are concerned -- passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and health care reform -- will also be in play this election season will especially energize much of their rank-and-file. Although the school reform movement has counted on the backing of such big-named philanthropists as Eli Broad and Bill Gates, its advocates have more of a presence inside the Beltway than among grassroots activists. The last campaign by school reformers to foster consensus on its prescriptions -- 2008's "ED in '08" -- petered out well before Election Day.
NEA and AFT affiliates will play a particularly critical role in states such as Pennsylvania and Colorado, where Democrats are defending vulnerable seats held respectively by Arlen Specter and Michael Bennett. The two unions and their affiliates spent $9.3 million in those two states alone. Although Bennett has been a strong school reformer since his days running Denver's school district, a re-energized GOP, voter dissatisfaction with Obama's healthcare and economic policies, and the lack of a strong incumbent in the gubernatorial race mean that Bennett will take all the help he can get.
But such help comes with a price. The NEA and AFT are particularly annoyed with Obama and his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, over Race to the Top, the $4.3 billion reform effort that has won qualified praise from school reformers. The dollars, along with the willingness of Obama and Duncan to use their respective bully pulpits, has convinced legislators in states such as California, Michigan and Massachusetts to ignore the entreaties of the two unions and eliminate restrictions on the expansion of charter schools and on the use of student test score data in evaluating teachers. This has forced the two unions to bully school districts -- which have to sign onto the plan -- and use other scorched-earth tactics in order to maintain the status quo.
For the Democrats, the tab starts with the $23 billion teacher subsidy package. Expect that package to gain passage by April, just before school districts begin drawing up plans to lay off teachers once the first round of stimulus funds runs out. This, by the way, will also benefit congressional Republicans in suburban districts, where opposition to the 16-year string of school reform efforts undertaken by Obama and his predecessors is strongest (and which plays to fears among some in the GOP that school reform is just another phrase for government mandate).
An ever bigger play may come with reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Bush-era reform of Title I that teachers unions, suburban school districts, and some Republicans alike oppose altogether. Will it be scrapped? Given the strong support for the measure among the motley crew of centrist Democrats, left-leaning civil rights activists, and even otherwise-conservative Republicans -- including newly elected Senator Brown -- not a chance. But at the very least, No Child may remain in legislative limbo despite Obama's own interest in putting his stamp on the measure.
The biggest piece could come in the next couple of years, as states are forced to reckon with decades of deal-making with teachers unions (and their own fiscal mismanagement) in the form of underfunded pensions and unfunded retiree healthcare liabilities. The battles are already starting to rage in Vermont -- where taxpayers will see a 43 percent increase in payments in order to keep the Green Mountain State's teachers' pensions afloat -- and Pennsylvania. Don't be surprised if Obama calls for a bailout of those pensions if the Democrats succeed in keeping control of Congress. Keeping the NEA and AFT happy is merely a small price for staying in power -- and one that the taxpayers (and children) will be paying in their stead.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Look for Fees and Taxes to go up in Your City
According to the American City & County website city budgets will be in trouble through 2010. Well that is a big no duh! Will they cut spending? Heck no! Expect more fees and property taxes to go. God forbid the public sector oligarchies across the Country give a little.
Pretty soon the government is going to put us in money machines with the money we earn throughout the year. What you can grab you keep, what you can't grab the government keeps.
I am grateful that we live in a town where the selectmen are serious about controlling spending. Now only if we had a school district that would do the same.
Cathy Peschke
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Quote of the Day - A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures? ~ Marcus Tillius Cicero
NLC survey: Cities' financial distress will continue beyond 2010
Sep 3, 2009 1:40 PM
The effects of the recession will continue to drag down city budgets beyond 2010, according to a survey by the Washington-based National League of Cities (NLC). The situation reflects the typical 18-month time lag seen in the effects that economic shifts have on city budgets that results from the collection of tax revenues only at certain times of the year, according to NLC.
The report, "City Fiscal Conditions in 2009," found that cities face significant budget gaps this year because of a 1.3 percent decline of income tax and a 3.8 percent decrease in sales tax collections. Those taxes are typically the earliest source of city revenue to decline as job losses increase and consumer purchases decrease, according to NLC. Property taxes, which make up the bulk of city revenue nationwide, are beginning to slow, growing only 1.6 percent as real property assessments are adjusted to reflect declining housing values.
To read the rest of the story go to the American City & County website.
Pretty soon the government is going to put us in money machines with the money we earn throughout the year. What you can grab you keep, what you can't grab the government keeps.
I am grateful that we live in a town where the selectmen are serious about controlling spending. Now only if we had a school district that would do the same.
Cathy Peschke
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Quote of the Day - A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures? ~ Marcus Tillius Cicero
NLC survey: Cities' financial distress will continue beyond 2010
Sep 3, 2009 1:40 PM
The effects of the recession will continue to drag down city budgets beyond 2010, according to a survey by the Washington-based National League of Cities (NLC). The situation reflects the typical 18-month time lag seen in the effects that economic shifts have on city budgets that results from the collection of tax revenues only at certain times of the year, according to NLC.
The report, "City Fiscal Conditions in 2009," found that cities face significant budget gaps this year because of a 1.3 percent decline of income tax and a 3.8 percent decrease in sales tax collections. Those taxes are typically the earliest source of city revenue to decline as job losses increase and consumer purchases decrease, according to NLC. Property taxes, which make up the bulk of city revenue nationwide, are beginning to slow, growing only 1.6 percent as real property assessments are adjusted to reflect declining housing values.
To read the rest of the story go to the American City & County website.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Teachers' Unions Attack On Capitalism Bites them in the Butt
Taxpayers really need to educate themselves on public pensions and teachers pensions. In most cases teachers or the school district will contribute 5 - 9% of a teacher's annual salary to a pension fund. Once retired, teachers typically take 75% of the average of their highest three years of salary as a pension annually. The difference between these two numbers is to be made up by investments and/or taxpayers. Teachers will probably withdraw all that they put into the system in the first three years of retirement. With retirement age so low they could be collecting a pension for 40 years that is a lot of money that needs to be made up by taxpayers and investments and once you multiply that by the millions of teachers you can see what an economic mess the unions and taxpayers are in. These pensions were designed in a way that only doomed them to failure how one math teacher could not see this is beyond me, school boards and legislators across America should be ashamed of themselves for ever enacting such a dreadful pension system, but so goes greed and pandering.
Teachers', SEIU members, etc., will be getting what they deserve, ultimately there is no way governments will be able to pay these pensions out many States and Cities will have to go bankrupt. These pensions should have been stopped years ago but greedy union people and the politicians who pandered to them never did the right thing.
The following piece appears on American Thinker. Be sure to check out the American Thinker site to see the links in the story and the comments.
Cathy
How's that attack on capitalism working out for teacher unions?
May 21, 2009
How's that attack on capitalism working out for teacher unions?
Jack Kemp
A number of reports are making their way into the press about how various teachers' unions are being hurt by the drop in the stock market. It is realistic to assume that the leaders and many, though not all, members of the teachers' unions are liberal Democrat Obama supporters. So, let us see how it is going for them.
The Minnesota state teachers pension fund is hurt badly by the drop in stock prices - and they want a government bailout. I gather they aren't members of the Ayn Rand Institute.
Some quotes from Twin Cities' own Star Tribune:
Through their Education Minnesota labor union, retirement association and education lobbying organizations, they're asking the Legislature for between $207 million and $223 million over four years to restore their pension fund to economic health. The proposal, part of the overall pension bill making its way through legislative committees, won't kick in until 2011, an acknowledgment that the money simply isn't there this year. ....
"It's just astonishing how tone-deaf Education Minnesota is, how they are pushing this now," said Mark Haveman, executive director of the Taxpayers Association (which is not connected to the Taxpayers League of Minnesota). ....
"It's not doable; we don't have the money," said Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, and the sole Senate Republican on the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement. "That doesn't just make Republicans nervous. I've seen a lot of DFLers squirm. It's really the problem child in that entire pension plan."
Brian McClung, spokesman for Gov. Tim Pawlenty, said the governor's office is still examining the pension bill, but added that "we've got a multibillion [dollar] deficit to solve, so this isn't a year to tack on big amounts of additional spending."
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the teachers pension fund is "closer to insolvency," losing "$2.6 billion" in the last fiscal year, according to this April article. There is talk of not being able to pay out full benefits in the near future. To quote the article, "The increase in the deficit, like the overall shortfall, is due largely to stock-market woes and the state's failure to pay the amount it owes into the system this year and for years before."
And in neighboring Pennsylvania, the teachers pension fund lost $20 Billion from June 2008 to March 20, 2009, according to Page 5 of this PDF file report from the Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System. The fund is invested 19.9 percent in stocks and 14.2 percent in Real Estate and 20 percent in foreign stocks, according to Page 3 of this report.
And also in neighboring New York City, the NY Post reports that:
"The city faces potentially catastrophic costs of up to $43 billion from recent pension investment losses, which threaten to drain the municipal budget and put taxpayers on the hook for years.
Recent market losses have left massive gaps for city taxpayers to plug -- $15 billion from Fiscal Year 2008, and an estimated $28 billion from 2009 if the pension funds dip 20 percent as feared, officials told The Post."
New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all voted for Obama. Be careful what you wish for.
Meanwhile, in Alabama, where Sen. McCain won the vote, there is this press release about a Federal Election Commission complaint against the NEA, concerning teachers' money being funneled to political donations. I'm going out on a limb here and assume it wasn't an NEA donation to the Ron Paul or John McCain campaigns.
'Washington, DC (January 13, 2009) - The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation announced today it will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking it to investigate charges made by two Alabama educators who discovered a union scheme to divert their money into the National Education Association's (NEA) political action committee (PAC).
Claire Waites, the chair of the science department, and Dr. Jeanne Fox, an assistant principal, both work at Daphne Middle School in Bay Minette, Alabama. Waites and Fox are both members of the Baldwin County Education Association (BCEA), Alabama Education Association (AEA), and NEA teacher unions.
In July 2008, Waites and Fox attended the NEA's annual convention in Washington, DC, as delegates of the BCEA. By telephone, BCEA union president Saadia Hunter informed Waites and Fox that contributions to a "children's fund" in their names were made from money included in their expense reimbursements for their trip to the convention.
Although Hunter told Waites that these contributions were not political in nature, they actually went to the NEA's PAC, the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education.
Later, Hunter admitted that the money would be contributed to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Sworn statements by Waites and Fox indicate that the AEA union boss also admitted that the PAC contributions were paid with BCEA members' dues. However, it is illegal for unions to contribute to political candidates using "dues, fees, or other moneys required as a condition of membership in a labor organization." '
A leftist I casually know recently was informing me a week ago that he saw a television report of a poet being invited to the White House and he thought this so much culturally better than the previous White House resident's years. Perhaps it was - for the White House resident, but not necessarily for his supporters around the country. I brushed off his remark and changed the subject. The mainstream media reports news of the Chrysler bankruptcy and General Motors pending bankruptcy and auto industry layoffs, but none of this impressed him. And I can't help but wondering that while Pres. Obama enjoys his $100 a pound steak, shortly travels to Las Vegas (after shaming other CEOs not to go there on business trips thus has and endangering Harry Reid's chances of reelection), that all these teacher pension fund losses are a type of poetic justice for those who no longer teach basic economics and characterize all businesses as polluters and exploiters.
There is an old saying in New York. A conservative is a liberal who got mugged. We will shortly see what kind of effect a huge mugging at the pension office and at the grocery store (as their dollars buy less) has on liberal teachers.
Teachers', SEIU members, etc., will be getting what they deserve, ultimately there is no way governments will be able to pay these pensions out many States and Cities will have to go bankrupt. These pensions should have been stopped years ago but greedy union people and the politicians who pandered to them never did the right thing.
The following piece appears on American Thinker. Be sure to check out the American Thinker site to see the links in the story and the comments.
Cathy
How's that attack on capitalism working out for teacher unions?
May 21, 2009
How's that attack on capitalism working out for teacher unions?
Jack Kemp
A number of reports are making their way into the press about how various teachers' unions are being hurt by the drop in the stock market. It is realistic to assume that the leaders and many, though not all, members of the teachers' unions are liberal Democrat Obama supporters. So, let us see how it is going for them.
The Minnesota state teachers pension fund is hurt badly by the drop in stock prices - and they want a government bailout. I gather they aren't members of the Ayn Rand Institute.
Some quotes from Twin Cities' own Star Tribune:
Through their Education Minnesota labor union, retirement association and education lobbying organizations, they're asking the Legislature for between $207 million and $223 million over four years to restore their pension fund to economic health. The proposal, part of the overall pension bill making its way through legislative committees, won't kick in until 2011, an acknowledgment that the money simply isn't there this year. ....
"It's just astonishing how tone-deaf Education Minnesota is, how they are pushing this now," said Mark Haveman, executive director of the Taxpayers Association (which is not connected to the Taxpayers League of Minnesota). ....
"It's not doable; we don't have the money," said Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, and the sole Senate Republican on the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement. "That doesn't just make Republicans nervous. I've seen a lot of DFLers squirm. It's really the problem child in that entire pension plan."
Brian McClung, spokesman for Gov. Tim Pawlenty, said the governor's office is still examining the pension bill, but added that "we've got a multibillion [dollar] deficit to solve, so this isn't a year to tack on big amounts of additional spending."
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the teachers pension fund is "closer to insolvency," losing "$2.6 billion" in the last fiscal year, according to this April article. There is talk of not being able to pay out full benefits in the near future. To quote the article, "The increase in the deficit, like the overall shortfall, is due largely to stock-market woes and the state's failure to pay the amount it owes into the system this year and for years before."
And in neighboring Pennsylvania, the teachers pension fund lost $20 Billion from June 2008 to March 20, 2009, according to Page 5 of this PDF file report from the Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System. The fund is invested 19.9 percent in stocks and 14.2 percent in Real Estate and 20 percent in foreign stocks, according to Page 3 of this report.
And also in neighboring New York City, the NY Post reports that:
"The city faces potentially catastrophic costs of up to $43 billion from recent pension investment losses, which threaten to drain the municipal budget and put taxpayers on the hook for years.
Recent market losses have left massive gaps for city taxpayers to plug -- $15 billion from Fiscal Year 2008, and an estimated $28 billion from 2009 if the pension funds dip 20 percent as feared, officials told The Post."
New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all voted for Obama. Be careful what you wish for.
Meanwhile, in Alabama, where Sen. McCain won the vote, there is this press release about a Federal Election Commission complaint against the NEA, concerning teachers' money being funneled to political donations. I'm going out on a limb here and assume it wasn't an NEA donation to the Ron Paul or John McCain campaigns.
'Washington, DC (January 13, 2009) - The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation announced today it will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking it to investigate charges made by two Alabama educators who discovered a union scheme to divert their money into the National Education Association's (NEA) political action committee (PAC).
Claire Waites, the chair of the science department, and Dr. Jeanne Fox, an assistant principal, both work at Daphne Middle School in Bay Minette, Alabama. Waites and Fox are both members of the Baldwin County Education Association (BCEA), Alabama Education Association (AEA), and NEA teacher unions.
In July 2008, Waites and Fox attended the NEA's annual convention in Washington, DC, as delegates of the BCEA. By telephone, BCEA union president Saadia Hunter informed Waites and Fox that contributions to a "children's fund" in their names were made from money included in their expense reimbursements for their trip to the convention.
Although Hunter told Waites that these contributions were not political in nature, they actually went to the NEA's PAC, the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education.
Later, Hunter admitted that the money would be contributed to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Sworn statements by Waites and Fox indicate that the AEA union boss also admitted that the PAC contributions were paid with BCEA members' dues. However, it is illegal for unions to contribute to political candidates using "dues, fees, or other moneys required as a condition of membership in a labor organization." '
A leftist I casually know recently was informing me a week ago that he saw a television report of a poet being invited to the White House and he thought this so much culturally better than the previous White House resident's years. Perhaps it was - for the White House resident, but not necessarily for his supporters around the country. I brushed off his remark and changed the subject. The mainstream media reports news of the Chrysler bankruptcy and General Motors pending bankruptcy and auto industry layoffs, but none of this impressed him. And I can't help but wondering that while Pres. Obama enjoys his $100 a pound steak, shortly travels to Las Vegas (after shaming other CEOs not to go there on business trips thus has and endangering Harry Reid's chances of reelection), that all these teacher pension fund losses are a type of poetic justice for those who no longer teach basic economics and characterize all businesses as polluters and exploiters.
There is an old saying in New York. A conservative is a liberal who got mugged. We will shortly see what kind of effect a huge mugging at the pension office and at the grocery store (as their dollars buy less) has on liberal teachers.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Greedy Powerful Unions vs Passive Ignorant Taxpayers
A taxpayer voting for a Democrat is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders. Taxpayers are being taken to the cleaners by public sector unions and legislators.
Too many Americans cast their votes with an incomprehensible ignorance. The public sector unions have ethics and morals I just do not understand perhaps it is best to say they do not have any ethics or morals. I seriously do not understand how these people can take their paychecks week after week and not feel guilty about it. They did not earn their paychecks, their paychecks have been garnered through brute force lobbying, propaganda warfare, the blackmailing of taxpayers and politicians and holding taxpayers hostage through illegal strikes. Wake up taxpayers public sector employees that are to serve you are robbing you and your future generations blind. Who is to blame, greedy unions, unethical legislators and ignorant voters?
The ignorance of so many is destroying the very freedoms on which this country was found. Have we reached the tipping point of no return? When are Americans go to wake up?
The following article appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Unions vs. Taxpayers
Organized labor has become by far the most powerful political force in government.
By STEVE MALANGA
Across the private sector, workers are swallowing hard as their employers freeze salaries, cancel bonuses, and institute longer work days. America's employees can see for themselves how steeply business has fallen off, which is why many are accepting cost-saving measures with equanimity -- especially compared to workers in France, where riots and plant takeovers have become regular news.
But then there is the U.S. public sector, where the mood seems very European these days. In New Jersey, which faces a $3.3 billion budget deficit, angry state workers have demonstrated in Trenton and taken Gov. Jon Corzine to court over his plan to require unpaid furloughs for public employees. In New York, public-sector unions have hit the airwaves with caustic ads denouncing Gov. David Paterson's promise to lay off state workers if they continue refusing to forgo wage hikes as part of an effort to close a $17.7 billion deficit. In Los Angeles County, where the schools face a budget deficit of nearly $600 million, school employees have balked at a salary freeze and vowed to oppose any layoffs that the board of education says it will have to pursue if workers don't agree to concessions.
Call it a tale of two economies. Private-sector workers -- unionized and nonunion alike -- can largely see that without compromises they may be forced to join unemployment lines. Not so in the public sector.
Government unions used their influence this winter in Washington to ensure that a healthy chunk of the federal stimulus package was sent to states and cities to preserve public jobs. Now they are fighting tenacious and largely successful local battles to safeguard salaries and benefits. Their gains, of course, can only come at the expense of taxpayers, which is one reason why states and cities are approving tens of billions of dollars in tax increases.
It's not as if we haven't seen this coming. When the movement among public-sector workers to unionize began gathering momentum in the 1950s, some critics, including private-sector labor leaders such as George Meany, observed that government is a monopoly not subject to the discipline of the marketplace. Allowing these workers -- many already protected by civil-service law -- to organize and bargain collectively might ultimately give them the power to hold politicians and taxpayers hostage.
It wasn't long before such fears were realized. By the mid-1960s, dozens of cities across America were wracked by teachers' strikes that closed school systems. Groups like New York City's transit workers walked off the job in 1966, bringing business in Gotham to a near halt. The United Federation of Teachers led an illegal strike which closed down New York City schools in 1968.
Widespread ire against strikes by public workers produced legislation in many states outlawing them. That prompted government workers to retreat from the picket lines into the halls of government. In Washington, they organized political action committees, set up sophisticated lobbying efforts, and used their muscle to help elect sympathetic public officials.
Today, public-sector unions sit atop lists of organizations that devote the most money to lobbying and campaign contributions.
In Pennsylvania, a local think tank, the Commonwealth Foundation, counted the resources of the state's teachers union a few years ago. It had 11 regional offices, 275 employees and $66 million in annual dues. In Connecticut, representatives of the teachers union camped outside the legislators' doors in 2005 to keep tabs on school reformers who were calling on these officials to expand school choice.
And in California, unions spent more than $50 million in 2005 to defeat a series of ballot proposals that would have capped growth in the state's budget. Now the state's teachers union is putting its clout behind a ballot initiative, to be voted on next week, that would restore more than $9 billion in educational spending cut from the state's budget.
The results of such efforts are evident in the rich rewards that public-sector employees now enjoy. A study in 2005 by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute estimated that the average public-sector worker earned 46% more in salary and benefits than comparable private-sector workers. The gap has only continued to grow. For example, state and local worker pay and benefits rose 3.1% in the last year, compared to 1.9% in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
But the real power of the public sector is showing through in this economic crisis. Some five million private-sector workers have lost their jobs in the last year alone, and their unemployment rate is above 9% according to the BLS. By contrast, public-sector employment has grown in virtually every month of the recession, and the jobless rate for government workers is a mere 2.8%. For anyone who thinks such low unemployment numbers are good news, remember that the bulging public sector must be paid for with revenues that most governments don't currently have. This is one reason for a spate of state and local tax increases, such as $5 billion in tax increases New York state passed in April, and $12 billion in tax increases California's legislature agreed to in February that will only become law if voters pass a series of ballot initiatives next week.
The next lesson we are likely to learn is that voter revolts against new taxes are no longer effective because of the might that these public- sector groups now wield. The tax-cut uprising of the late 1970s began in California with Proposition 13 capping property taxes. It then spread to more than a dozen states before it became a national movement that helped elect Ronald Reagan. The next tax revolt, during the recession of the early 1990s, helped sink officials like New Jersey Gov. James Florio and produced ballot propositions in places like Colorado that capped spending or made tax increases more difficult.
Now powerful and savvy, public unions have moved effectively to quash antitax movements. In New Jersey, public unions derailed a taxpayer revolt in 2005 by using their legislative clout to water down a bill that would have created a state constitutional convention to enact property-tax reform. Meanwhile, under pressure from unions, state legislatures in places like Florida have been tightening rules and requirements for passing voter initiatives and referenda -- blunting a favorite tool of antitax groups.
In states like Iowa where public unionization rates are still low government workers have had to accept concessions. But allies of the unions in Washington are working to rectify that situation with union-friendly legislation like the card check bill, which will make organizing much easier.
In the private sector such efforts will still be subject to the demands of the marketplace. Employers who are too generous with pay and benefits will be punished. In the public sector, however, more union members means more voters. And more voters means more dollars for political campaigns to elect sympathetic politicians who will enact higher taxes to foot the bill for the upward arc of government spending on workers. That will be the pattern for the indefinite future unless taxpayers find a way to roll back the enormous power public workers have acquired.
Mr. Malanga is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Too many Americans cast their votes with an incomprehensible ignorance. The public sector unions have ethics and morals I just do not understand perhaps it is best to say they do not have any ethics or morals. I seriously do not understand how these people can take their paychecks week after week and not feel guilty about it. They did not earn their paychecks, their paychecks have been garnered through brute force lobbying, propaganda warfare, the blackmailing of taxpayers and politicians and holding taxpayers hostage through illegal strikes. Wake up taxpayers public sector employees that are to serve you are robbing you and your future generations blind. Who is to blame, greedy unions, unethical legislators and ignorant voters?
The ignorance of so many is destroying the very freedoms on which this country was found. Have we reached the tipping point of no return? When are Americans go to wake up?
The following article appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Unions vs. Taxpayers
Organized labor has become by far the most powerful political force in government.
By STEVE MALANGA
Across the private sector, workers are swallowing hard as their employers freeze salaries, cancel bonuses, and institute longer work days. America's employees can see for themselves how steeply business has fallen off, which is why many are accepting cost-saving measures with equanimity -- especially compared to workers in France, where riots and plant takeovers have become regular news.
But then there is the U.S. public sector, where the mood seems very European these days. In New Jersey, which faces a $3.3 billion budget deficit, angry state workers have demonstrated in Trenton and taken Gov. Jon Corzine to court over his plan to require unpaid furloughs for public employees. In New York, public-sector unions have hit the airwaves with caustic ads denouncing Gov. David Paterson's promise to lay off state workers if they continue refusing to forgo wage hikes as part of an effort to close a $17.7 billion deficit. In Los Angeles County, where the schools face a budget deficit of nearly $600 million, school employees have balked at a salary freeze and vowed to oppose any layoffs that the board of education says it will have to pursue if workers don't agree to concessions.
Call it a tale of two economies. Private-sector workers -- unionized and nonunion alike -- can largely see that without compromises they may be forced to join unemployment lines. Not so in the public sector.
Government unions used their influence this winter in Washington to ensure that a healthy chunk of the federal stimulus package was sent to states and cities to preserve public jobs. Now they are fighting tenacious and largely successful local battles to safeguard salaries and benefits. Their gains, of course, can only come at the expense of taxpayers, which is one reason why states and cities are approving tens of billions of dollars in tax increases.
It's not as if we haven't seen this coming. When the movement among public-sector workers to unionize began gathering momentum in the 1950s, some critics, including private-sector labor leaders such as George Meany, observed that government is a monopoly not subject to the discipline of the marketplace. Allowing these workers -- many already protected by civil-service law -- to organize and bargain collectively might ultimately give them the power to hold politicians and taxpayers hostage.
It wasn't long before such fears were realized. By the mid-1960s, dozens of cities across America were wracked by teachers' strikes that closed school systems. Groups like New York City's transit workers walked off the job in 1966, bringing business in Gotham to a near halt. The United Federation of Teachers led an illegal strike which closed down New York City schools in 1968.
Widespread ire against strikes by public workers produced legislation in many states outlawing them. That prompted government workers to retreat from the picket lines into the halls of government. In Washington, they organized political action committees, set up sophisticated lobbying efforts, and used their muscle to help elect sympathetic public officials.
Today, public-sector unions sit atop lists of organizations that devote the most money to lobbying and campaign contributions.
In Pennsylvania, a local think tank, the Commonwealth Foundation, counted the resources of the state's teachers union a few years ago. It had 11 regional offices, 275 employees and $66 million in annual dues. In Connecticut, representatives of the teachers union camped outside the legislators' doors in 2005 to keep tabs on school reformers who were calling on these officials to expand school choice.
And in California, unions spent more than $50 million in 2005 to defeat a series of ballot proposals that would have capped growth in the state's budget. Now the state's teachers union is putting its clout behind a ballot initiative, to be voted on next week, that would restore more than $9 billion in educational spending cut from the state's budget.
The results of such efforts are evident in the rich rewards that public-sector employees now enjoy. A study in 2005 by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute estimated that the average public-sector worker earned 46% more in salary and benefits than comparable private-sector workers. The gap has only continued to grow. For example, state and local worker pay and benefits rose 3.1% in the last year, compared to 1.9% in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
But the real power of the public sector is showing through in this economic crisis. Some five million private-sector workers have lost their jobs in the last year alone, and their unemployment rate is above 9% according to the BLS. By contrast, public-sector employment has grown in virtually every month of the recession, and the jobless rate for government workers is a mere 2.8%. For anyone who thinks such low unemployment numbers are good news, remember that the bulging public sector must be paid for with revenues that most governments don't currently have. This is one reason for a spate of state and local tax increases, such as $5 billion in tax increases New York state passed in April, and $12 billion in tax increases California's legislature agreed to in February that will only become law if voters pass a series of ballot initiatives next week.
The next lesson we are likely to learn is that voter revolts against new taxes are no longer effective because of the might that these public- sector groups now wield. The tax-cut uprising of the late 1970s began in California with Proposition 13 capping property taxes. It then spread to more than a dozen states before it became a national movement that helped elect Ronald Reagan. The next tax revolt, during the recession of the early 1990s, helped sink officials like New Jersey Gov. James Florio and produced ballot propositions in places like Colorado that capped spending or made tax increases more difficult.
Now powerful and savvy, public unions have moved effectively to quash antitax movements. In New Jersey, public unions derailed a taxpayer revolt in 2005 by using their legislative clout to water down a bill that would have created a state constitutional convention to enact property-tax reform. Meanwhile, under pressure from unions, state legislatures in places like Florida have been tightening rules and requirements for passing voter initiatives and referenda -- blunting a favorite tool of antitax groups.
In states like Iowa where public unionization rates are still low government workers have had to accept concessions. But allies of the unions in Washington are working to rectify that situation with union-friendly legislation like the card check bill, which will make organizing much easier.
In the private sector such efforts will still be subject to the demands of the marketplace. Employers who are too generous with pay and benefits will be punished. In the public sector, however, more union members means more voters. And more voters means more dollars for political campaigns to elect sympathetic politicians who will enact higher taxes to foot the bill for the upward arc of government spending on workers. That will be the pattern for the indefinite future unless taxpayers find a way to roll back the enormous power public workers have acquired.
Mr. Malanga is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Friday, May 8, 2009
A National Bailout for Cities Would be Bad, Very Bad for Taxpayers
A national bailout of cities and or states would be devastating to taxpayers. If a national bailout of cities were to occur it would make the current bailouts look like chump change. Part of the problem with city and state budgets are their pension systems. City and state pensions are Ponzi schemes the way in which they were designed dooms them to failure. Employees or employers contribute only 8-10% to the pension system but once the employee retires they take out 75-90% of their salary, the funds in which the pensions are invested do not return the difference needed to remain sustainable. The retirement age of said employees is anywhere from 45-65 this is another structural failure of the pension system because life expectancy is so high. Many retired employees end up receiving pensions funds for a longer time period than they actually worked within the system.
What can a taxpayer do? Vote for candidates who do not support the current system and vote for candidates who will move toward a defined contribution plan. When and if confronted with a bailout encourage legislators and leaders to accept bankruptcy over a bailout.
The current system has created a two-tiered caste system, which may lead to tyranny. Those in the government who serve the taxpayer should be served by social security and not by a non-sustainable pension system.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
The following piece appears at Reuters.com.
U.S. cities need national bailout agency: Rohatyn
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The architect of the 1970s financial rescue of New York City said on Wednesday the federal government should create a powerful national agency to bail out dozens of floundering U.S. cities.
Felix Rohatyn, the chairman of New York's Municipal Assistance Corp. from 1975 to 1993, said at the Reuters Infrastructure Summit that policymakers should look to the Reconstruction Finance Corp. created in 1932 as a model to aid cities and states as they confront their biggest deficits in decades.
"I think this all is unfortunately virgin territory," he said, referring to the impact of the 17-month-old national recession on state and local governments.
Rohatyn, author of "Bold Endeavors," a history of landmark U.S. infrastructure investments, said the depression-era reconstruction bank was a successful lender to local governments, banks and businesses.
The 1930s bank bought preferred stock from the institutions it helped; this let taxpayers share in any future gains.
Rohatyn suggested this kind of funding model might work for the new national agency he outlined.
Today, scores of cities and states are running billions of dollars of deficits. Some have suspended non-critical services by furloughing workers to save money. California and New York state have raised taxes, unpopular steps in a recession.
Unlike the U.S. government, which can print money to close deficits, states and cities are required to balance their budgets.
Rohatyn said hard-pressed state and local governments should be temporarily allowed to run deficits instead of curtailing vital services.
If these governments cannot solve their deficits by themselves, then a national agency could step in, he said. That was how New York state's control board solved the city's budget crisis in the 1970s.
"I think there is a yawning need for a serious look at urban and state problems," Rohatyn said.
In addition to leading the Municipal Assistance Corporation, which sold debt for New York City during its near-brush with bankruptcy, Rohatyn helped lead the state Control Board, which wielded huge power over city budgets.
The board stepped in after New York City's elected leaders were unable to agree on measures to balance the budget.
Rohatyn recalled that tens of thousands of city workers were laid off in just a few years while subway fares doubled.
(Reporting by Michael Connor, Karen Pierog, Joan Gralla, Jim Christie and Ciara Linnane)
What can a taxpayer do? Vote for candidates who do not support the current system and vote for candidates who will move toward a defined contribution plan. When and if confronted with a bailout encourage legislators and leaders to accept bankruptcy over a bailout.
The current system has created a two-tiered caste system, which may lead to tyranny. Those in the government who serve the taxpayer should be served by social security and not by a non-sustainable pension system.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
The following piece appears at Reuters.com.
U.S. cities need national bailout agency: Rohatyn
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The architect of the 1970s financial rescue of New York City said on Wednesday the federal government should create a powerful national agency to bail out dozens of floundering U.S. cities.
Felix Rohatyn, the chairman of New York's Municipal Assistance Corp. from 1975 to 1993, said at the Reuters Infrastructure Summit that policymakers should look to the Reconstruction Finance Corp. created in 1932 as a model to aid cities and states as they confront their biggest deficits in decades.
"I think this all is unfortunately virgin territory," he said, referring to the impact of the 17-month-old national recession on state and local governments.
Rohatyn, author of "Bold Endeavors," a history of landmark U.S. infrastructure investments, said the depression-era reconstruction bank was a successful lender to local governments, banks and businesses.
The 1930s bank bought preferred stock from the institutions it helped; this let taxpayers share in any future gains.
Rohatyn suggested this kind of funding model might work for the new national agency he outlined.
Today, scores of cities and states are running billions of dollars of deficits. Some have suspended non-critical services by furloughing workers to save money. California and New York state have raised taxes, unpopular steps in a recession.
Unlike the U.S. government, which can print money to close deficits, states and cities are required to balance their budgets.
Rohatyn said hard-pressed state and local governments should be temporarily allowed to run deficits instead of curtailing vital services.
If these governments cannot solve their deficits by themselves, then a national agency could step in, he said. That was how New York state's control board solved the city's budget crisis in the 1970s.
"I think there is a yawning need for a serious look at urban and state problems," Rohatyn said.
In addition to leading the Municipal Assistance Corporation, which sold debt for New York City during its near-brush with bankruptcy, Rohatyn helped lead the state Control Board, which wielded huge power over city budgets.
The board stepped in after New York City's elected leaders were unable to agree on measures to balance the budget.
Rohatyn recalled that tens of thousands of city workers were laid off in just a few years while subway fares doubled.
(Reporting by Michael Connor, Karen Pierog, Joan Gralla, Jim Christie and Ciara Linnane)
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
New Hampshire Retirement System Unfunded Obligations
This report originated from the Josiah Bartlett Center but came to me via the Sullivan County GOP. The numbers may be new to my readers but the current status of the retirement system should not be new to my readers. Look at the final number and think of how many people live in New Hampshire. How do you think the state will meet those obligations? The only solution in my eyes is the state must go bankrupt.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
New Hampshire Retirement System Unfunded Obligations
Seven Billion Dollars
The New Hampshire Retirement System (NHRS) is facing a crisis stemming from unfunded pension obligations that threaten the fiscal health of the state. The New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, an independent, nonpartisan organization that pursues data-based research on public policy matters, estimated in September, 2007 that “Legislative promised made to state and local government employees and retirees will be increasingly difficult to honor without increasing state and local taxes.”
The 2003 and 2005 NHRS valuation reports show that within just a two year period, the actuarial funding ratio of the NHRS fell from about 80% to 60%. The chart below shows the unfunded pension obligations of the State of New Hampshire as of 2006:
From 2000 to 2006, the accrued liabilities of the pension fund increases by almost $3 billion, while the net assets held for benefits increased by only about $800 million.
However, this underestimates the overall shortfall of the retirement system. In 2008, in its General Obligation Capital Improvement Bond Statement (November 4, 2008), the State of New Hampshire disclosed the following overall retirement system obligations (figures in millions):
Unfunded Pension liability $2,519.3 million
Additional asset decline, from 6/30/2008 to 10/24/2008 1,430.0
Postemployment Health Benefit liability 494.7
Other Postemployment Benefits liability 2,559.5
Judicial Retirement System liability 4.3
TOTAL $7,007.8 million
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
New Hampshire Retirement System Unfunded Obligations
Seven Billion Dollars
The New Hampshire Retirement System (NHRS) is facing a crisis stemming from unfunded pension obligations that threaten the fiscal health of the state. The New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, an independent, nonpartisan organization that pursues data-based research on public policy matters, estimated in September, 2007 that “Legislative promised made to state and local government employees and retirees will be increasingly difficult to honor without increasing state and local taxes.”
The 2003 and 2005 NHRS valuation reports show that within just a two year period, the actuarial funding ratio of the NHRS fell from about 80% to 60%. The chart below shows the unfunded pension obligations of the State of New Hampshire as of 2006:
From 2000 to 2006, the accrued liabilities of the pension fund increases by almost $3 billion, while the net assets held for benefits increased by only about $800 million.
However, this underestimates the overall shortfall of the retirement system. In 2008, in its General Obligation Capital Improvement Bond Statement (November 4, 2008), the State of New Hampshire disclosed the following overall retirement system obligations (figures in millions):
Unfunded Pension liability $2,519.3 million
Additional asset decline, from 6/30/2008 to 10/24/2008 1,430.0
Postemployment Health Benefit liability 494.7
Other Postemployment Benefits liability 2,559.5
Judicial Retirement System liability 4.3
TOTAL $7,007.8 million
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Interesting Site
Unions and socialism ultimately don't work because of human nature. In theory they may be a good idea but the reality is they just do not work. I found the following two articles on a website called EcoWorld. The first article is titled The Tyranny of Unions by Ed Ring and the second article is Abolish Public Pensions by Ed Ring.
I think if more members of the left and union members truly understood unions they too would oppose unions.
Lately we have seen with budget deficits more often than not when push comes to shove unions members will throw their own members overboard rather than protect them in order to keep their salaries and benefits. If unions really cared about everyone they would take cuts in pay and benefits rather than sacrificing the jobs of fellow union members.
The Socialist Worker reported Bill Maher recently stated , "Teacher's unions--now that's one union we must break." He also said unions "protect bad teachers." If Bill Maher understands how bad teacher unions are, maybe there is still hope for the rest of the people on the far left.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
I think if more members of the left and union members truly understood unions they too would oppose unions.
Lately we have seen with budget deficits more often than not when push comes to shove unions members will throw their own members overboard rather than protect them in order to keep their salaries and benefits. If unions really cared about everyone they would take cuts in pay and benefits rather than sacrificing the jobs of fellow union members.
The Socialist Worker reported Bill Maher recently stated , "Teacher's unions--now that's one union we must break." He also said unions "protect bad teachers." If Bill Maher understands how bad teacher unions are, maybe there is still hope for the rest of the people on the far left.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Monday, April 13, 2009
The Old Teachers Are Retiring and Teacher Shortage Propaganda Popped Up in the News Again
The tsunami is not going to be so much the teachers retiring but the pension tsunami that will follow. States across America are going to be facing bankruptcy and I hope they do go bankrupt. If not taxes are going to be out of this world. These pension systems are nothing more than Ponzi Schemes and never should been put into place. You cannot pay 10% of your salary into a system and take out 75-90% of the last three years of salary in return. Any high school math teacher worth the paper their diploma was printed on should know that.
Teachers are retiring at 55 and 60, this is absurd. Especially considering most teachers are women and the high life expectancy of women. Retirement age for teachers should be at least 65 if not 70.
I actually do hope there is a teacher shortage and I realize in some communities there will be, but there does not have to be a teacher shortage. Holding a teaching certificate should not be a prerequisite to teaching. I would much rather have a mathematician teach math, a chemist teaching chemistry, a writer teaching english, a retired athlete teaching PE, etc. Instead we have hacks who have gone from kindergarten to college and back into the classroom, many never working in the real world are now supposedly preparing our children to function in the real world.
The following piece appears at Examiner.com.
Cathy Peschke
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Half of N.H. teachers 50 or older by Paul Briand
April 8, 6:23 AM ·
More than half of New Hampshire's teachers are 50 or older making it and other states vulnerable to a 'tsunami' of retirements in the next several years, according to a new report.
The retirements, coupled with a low retention of new teachers, leaves an inadequate supply of teachers, said the report from the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future.
"... over 1.7 million teachers and principals -- more than half of today’s educators -- are eligible to retire in less than ten years," said an introduction to the commission's white paper.
"On a small scale, retirements can make room for new teachers with fresh ideas, optimism, and enthusiasm. But when the scale is so large and you combine these retirements with the reality that 1/3 of new teachers leave in the first three years, we are pouring water into a bucket with big holes, draining teachers faster than we can replace them."
There are certainly challenges ahead when you put this report in context with a new N.H. Department of Education report that shows 253 schools don't meet targets for reading, math and other areas. It'll be tough to improve public education if it becomes difficult to staff classrooms.
New Hampshire is tied for fifth nationwide as having the most number of teachers 50 and older.
The details of the report show the state with the highest percentage is West Virginia with 68 percent.
Here, in order, are the states with the highest percentage that is most alarming to the commission:
West Virginia - 68 percent
Maine - 56 percent
Vermont - 55 percent
Montana - 55 percent
North Dakota - 54 percent
New Mexico - 54 percent
Indiana - 54 percent
New Hampshire - 53 percent
Massachusetts - 53 percent
Connecticut - 53 percent
Oregon - 53 percent
Wyoming - 53 percent
New Jersey - 53 percent
Washington - 51 percent
District of Columbia - 51 percent
Idaho - 51 percent
Illinois - 51 percent
Rhode Island - 50 percent
The state with the fewest percentage is Kentucky at 40 percent.
The commission is recommending an overhaul of our approach to education to a) better prepare and keep younger teachers and b) harness the numbers and intelligence of Baby Boomer retirees (teachers and non-teachers alike). It wants this report to serve as a catalyst for discussion on how to fundamentally change the approach to education.
Such a plan is already in the works in West Virginia, said the commission, because of its inordinately large number of potential retirees.
"The goal is to integrate learning with community resources and civic participation to build both stronger learning environments and stronger communities. Cross?generational learning teams that pool the knowledge, skill, and experience of multiple generations will be at the heart of efforts to create these true community learning centers," said the commission.
New Hampshire, according to the education department, showed some improvement in its annual report that measures performance standards as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The report released Monday shows 253 schools and 81 districts did not meet performance standards, which is a slight improvement. The number of schools failing to make progress fell from 282 last year to 253 this year.
Schools that don't make adequate progress two years in a row are added to a list of schools in need of improvement. Seventy-two schools were added to the list and 12 were removed, bringing to 238 the number of schools in the state as in need of improvement; 54 districts are on the list.
Teachers are retiring at 55 and 60, this is absurd. Especially considering most teachers are women and the high life expectancy of women. Retirement age for teachers should be at least 65 if not 70.
I actually do hope there is a teacher shortage and I realize in some communities there will be, but there does not have to be a teacher shortage. Holding a teaching certificate should not be a prerequisite to teaching. I would much rather have a mathematician teach math, a chemist teaching chemistry, a writer teaching english, a retired athlete teaching PE, etc. Instead we have hacks who have gone from kindergarten to college and back into the classroom, many never working in the real world are now supposedly preparing our children to function in the real world.
The following piece appears at Examiner.com.
Cathy Peschke
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Half of N.H. teachers 50 or older by Paul Briand
April 8, 6:23 AM ·
More than half of New Hampshire's teachers are 50 or older making it and other states vulnerable to a 'tsunami' of retirements in the next several years, according to a new report.
The retirements, coupled with a low retention of new teachers, leaves an inadequate supply of teachers, said the report from the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future.
"... over 1.7 million teachers and principals -- more than half of today’s educators -- are eligible to retire in less than ten years," said an introduction to the commission's white paper.
"On a small scale, retirements can make room for new teachers with fresh ideas, optimism, and enthusiasm. But when the scale is so large and you combine these retirements with the reality that 1/3 of new teachers leave in the first three years, we are pouring water into a bucket with big holes, draining teachers faster than we can replace them."
There are certainly challenges ahead when you put this report in context with a new N.H. Department of Education report that shows 253 schools don't meet targets for reading, math and other areas. It'll be tough to improve public education if it becomes difficult to staff classrooms.
New Hampshire is tied for fifth nationwide as having the most number of teachers 50 and older.
The details of the report show the state with the highest percentage is West Virginia with 68 percent.
Here, in order, are the states with the highest percentage that is most alarming to the commission:
West Virginia - 68 percent
Maine - 56 percent
Vermont - 55 percent
Montana - 55 percent
North Dakota - 54 percent
New Mexico - 54 percent
Indiana - 54 percent
New Hampshire - 53 percent
Massachusetts - 53 percent
Connecticut - 53 percent
Oregon - 53 percent
Wyoming - 53 percent
New Jersey - 53 percent
Washington - 51 percent
District of Columbia - 51 percent
Idaho - 51 percent
Illinois - 51 percent
Rhode Island - 50 percent
The state with the fewest percentage is Kentucky at 40 percent.
The commission is recommending an overhaul of our approach to education to a) better prepare and keep younger teachers and b) harness the numbers and intelligence of Baby Boomer retirees (teachers and non-teachers alike). It wants this report to serve as a catalyst for discussion on how to fundamentally change the approach to education.
Such a plan is already in the works in West Virginia, said the commission, because of its inordinately large number of potential retirees.
"The goal is to integrate learning with community resources and civic participation to build both stronger learning environments and stronger communities. Cross?generational learning teams that pool the knowledge, skill, and experience of multiple generations will be at the heart of efforts to create these true community learning centers," said the commission.
New Hampshire, according to the education department, showed some improvement in its annual report that measures performance standards as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The report released Monday shows 253 schools and 81 districts did not meet performance standards, which is a slight improvement. The number of schools failing to make progress fell from 282 last year to 253 this year.
Schools that don't make adequate progress two years in a row are added to a list of schools in need of improvement. Seventy-two schools were added to the list and 12 were removed, bringing to 238 the number of schools in the state as in need of improvement; 54 districts are on the list.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Retirement aged raised for some New Hampshire employees.
The following news is a break for New Hampshire taxpayers, but does not go far enough. Retirement age needs to be raised further with life expectancies so long. The pension system needs to be changed to a defined contribution plan from the current defined benefit plan. The current system is a Ponzi scheme. The following piece appeared as an AP article in the Concord Monitor.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for our readers.
NH House supports raising retirement age for some
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- The New Hampshire House is supporting raising the retirement age for newly hired police officers, firefighters and others in law enforcement.
The House voted 279-90 Wednesday to raise the retirement age from 45 to 50 years. The bill also would require the employees to work 25 years - five more than they do now, before qualifying for retirement benefits.
The bill now goes to the House Finance Committee for review.
Last year, the House raised the retirement age as part of a bill overhauling the pension system, but police, firefighters and others affected by the change successfully lobbied the Senate to reject it.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for our readers.
NH House supports raising retirement age for some
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- The New Hampshire House is supporting raising the retirement age for newly hired police officers, firefighters and others in law enforcement.
The House voted 279-90 Wednesday to raise the retirement age from 45 to 50 years. The bill also would require the employees to work 25 years - five more than they do now, before qualifying for retirement benefits.
The bill now goes to the House Finance Committee for review.
Last year, the House raised the retirement age as part of a bill overhauling the pension system, but police, firefighters and others affected by the change successfully lobbied the Senate to reject it.
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