Sure teachers are nice people. But not fiscally special. Why should the legislature give their pension fund a humongo amount of taxpayer cash?
Strib reports online:
Minnesota teachers seek $223M bailout for pension fund
They're asking the Legislature for between $207 million and $223 million over four years to restore their pension fund to economic health.
By NORMAN DRAPER, Star Tribune - update: May 1, 2009-11:37 PM
Now, at such an inopportune time, teachers say their retirement fund needs a bailout.
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 acknowledgement that the money simply isn't there this year.
"We do recognize that it's difficult for school districts and the state [to pump more money into the pension plan]," said Laurie Hacking, executive director of the Minnesota Teachers Retirement Association (TRA), which manages the pension plan. "That's why we delayed it for two years."
Already, the pension bill has made its way through committees in the House and Senate, and is awaiting action by the finance committees in both chambers.
Pension funding advocates argue that the $18 billion pension fund has been hit hard by the stock market slump, and needs to be replenished if it is to stay healthy in the years to come.
Critics, most notably the Minnesota Taxpayers Association, argue that the timing for such a request -- as schools are being shuttered, teachers laid off and workers in other sectors getting smacked with salary and benefit reductions -- couldn't be worse. They also note that, as part of the proposal, many teachers will get an improved retirement benefit.
"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).
But Hacking and Tom Dooher, Education Minnesota's president, say taxpayers are off the hook for at least the improved benefits part of the plan, which lower the age at which teachers can get full retirement benefits from 66 to 62.
Here is one item that really galls me:
Plus, Hacking said, lowering the age at which teachers can get full retirement benefits protects schools from older teachers who are just marking time until they can get their full retirement benefits. The average full retirement benefit for a Minnesota teacher is $2,203 per month, Hacking said.
If "older teachers who are just marking time" is a problem then fire them.
Don't reward "marking time," ever, because it is wrong and wrong is not right. Wrong is wrong. That is the lamest dumbest thing I have seen a person alleged to have said in months. Super dumb. It is not a convincing thing to say give us two hundred million because we've membership that's marking time, and giving us two hundred million is the way to deal with that situation.
Hardly.
There are better ways to handle those marking time, such as:
Strib continues:
Haveman warned that the proposed increases aren't enough to fully fund the retirement plan, and that costs and the need for public contribution to teacher retirements could grow well beyond the four-year funding request.
Part of the problem, Haveman said, is the nuts and bolts of the pension proposal are so difficult to grasp that it has fallen under the radar screen of most legislators. The proposal, so far, has been on a quiet route through the legislative committees, though the price tag makes some legislators nervous.
"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."
[...]
The MTRA comprises 77,000 teachers, 5 percent of whom teach in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system. Another 34,000 are inactive members, who no longer teach but are eligible for retirement benefits.
If the only answer to why did their pension fund take a hit is they had a bozo in charge who put too much into morgtage backed bonds, and lost a bundle, again, that is not unique.
Why is this Laurie Hacking person not facing up to that possibility, portfolio mismanagement, where an answer might be, if Hacking is the mismanager, to change faces at the management desk and while at it, at the trading desk?
Bring in a new batch of consultants, with judgment better than the last batch. Don't reward failure with a two hundred million dollar sop, eliminate failure, as feasible, starting with elimination of decision makers who've underperformed.
Failure - you weed it out, you do not bail it out.
So, aside from being a big force in the DFL, 77,000 DFL voters as the Strib noted the membership number - and there is the DFL having a majority in both houses; aside from that, what merit is there to this power bloc wanting to will the legislature to give them a bundle of taxpayer cash, in these hard times, when taxpayer cash is in such short supply?
If the only answer to why should the legislature do it is because the teachers union owns the legislature, that's not cause to capitulate, it is cause to question the political alignment that allowed these people to gain that position, a position where they might have the gall to make this shabby move without any public disclosure of where the fund money went and why, and without any assurances that the fund management has been realigned, with old faces "marking time" at the fund replaced with diligent new ones.
Simply put, having the power of DFL bloc voting does not make it right. This is one time Pawlenty having a line item veto is good, IF he uses it to scuttle this offensive cash grab. In hard times. When children of taxpayers cannot afford to go to the University of Minnesota because it costs too much.