Harp on this as much as you want, but the cost of teacher (and other state worker and retiree) benefits is out of control. In some cases as reported by the Wall Street Journal even viable solutions are rejected by unions. But there is a method to their madness – you get to pay for their irresponsibility.
Consider this point of view from a union leader:
The Milwaukee Teachers Education Association was immovable on benefits in part because it placed a bet on its Democratic friends in Washington rushing to the rescue. “The problem must be addressed with a national solution, a federal stimulus package that will restore educator positions,” Pat Omar, the union’s executive director said in June. The union’s strategy in recent weeks has been to stage rallies demanding a federal bailout, and it used hundreds of school kids at those rallies as political props
It is no coincidence that the first attack on costs is to call for the layoff of teachers, the emotional issue of doing that is akin to attacking health care providers as part of the health care cost problem. Who wants to penalize a teacher or doctor, we need both so we find a way to keep spending and keep up with our irresponsible ways. All we need is someone else’s money to keep the broken system going a little longer.
What we need is more motivation to fix the problems with solutions that are fair to all parties – and that includes the taxpayers.
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Harp on this as much as you want, but the cost of teacher (and other state worker and retiree) benefits is the cost of a contractual obligation. For existing retirees and for those with tenure under existing systems the cost is immaterial, it is a legal and binding obligation. Perhaps a renegotiated contract could be arranged with those who are not already retireed or tenured.
Further, I don’t know if you intended to include first responders (I won’t go into Federal Employees as you specificly said “state”) but you really need to understand the dynamics involved. Police, firefighters, EMS personnel, employees of the various correctional facilities, and I may have left some out, share something that other state and most private employees do not, and that is that they are paid relatively low wages/salaries for placing themselves in harm’s way on a daily basis. They are the difference between civil society and chaos, and they should be adequately compensated, and yes that includes pensions. Whatever they get probably isn’t enough.
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I have to disagree with you. My daughter is a police officer and my son a firefighter. In addition, I have studied this extensively and state workers are not under paid. Granted some jobs are dangerous and most of us would not or could not do them, but that foes not mean we should write a blank check. In some states the benefits for state workers are 40% higher than the private sector. It would be more efficient to lower those costs and raise pay as a partial offset. Taxpayers cannot afford these costs and many of the taxpayers have no pensions or other benefits at all.
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I guess living in a ruralarea colors my view. We have 2 State troopers to cover 100 milees of State Highway. It is spread over 2 counties, so there are about 16 Sheriff’s Deputies. And there are two towns with 1 police officer each and another with 2. These are the 2nd and 5th poorest counties in the state. All of our Fifrefighters are VFD, they sell BBQ Chicken and hold Bingo games to maintain equipment, and they don’t get pensions. And State budget cuts caused the loss of 5 teachers. Local median household is about $30,000 per year, more than $11,000 below the national median.
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