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Florida Cities Are Drowning In Pension Debt : The Sunshine State follows the Golden State
Business Insider ^ | 02/14/2011 | Grace Wyler
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Unfunded pension obligations are a "ticking time bomb" for cities and counties across Florida, according to a new report.
The report, from researchers at Florida State University, found that local government's have failed to set aside enough money to fund generous pension and health care plans for public employees. Now, as baby-boomers reach retirement, pension obligations are putting a serious strain on already tight municipal budgets.
The problem is affecting nearly every large city in Florida. Miami, one of the worst offenders, only set aside $74 million of the $100 million it owed in 2009, the Miami Herald reports. Orlando and Fort Lauderdale underfunded their pension plans by 30%.
On average, pension obligations are nearly 10% of Florida cities' annual spending, the report says. In Miami and St. Petersburg, retirement costs are more than 50% of total payrolls.
The study comes on the heels of Florida Gov. Rick Scott's $65 billion budget proposal, which includes a sweeping overhaul of the state employee pension system.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
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Its really not. Anything built from the late 1800s (start of the United States industrial revolution) to about 1970 (the time period when America actually manufactured goods) bore a union label proudly. Clothes, Cars, Saw Mills, Masonry, Windows, Farms etc... If America made it, there was a Union label on it. The height of American Manufacturing power 1880-1970 was a direct result of Unions.
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Its really not. Anything built from the late 1800s (start of the United States industrial revolution) to about 1970 (the time period when America actually manufactured goods) bore a union label proudly. Clothes, Cars, Saw Mills, Masonry, Windows, Farms etc... If America made it, there was a Union label on it. The height of American Manufacturing power 1880-1970 was a direct result of Unions.
What do "PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS" build?
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Legislative analyst identifies massive cuts if taxes fail
SacBee: Capitol Alert ^ | 2/14/11 | Kevin Yamamura
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If lawmakers pursue a cuts-only budget to solve the state's $26.6 billion deficit, they could eliminate class-size reduction, require that kindergarten students be 5 years old at enrollment and hike university tuition by another 7 to 10 percent, according to a new review by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.
There's also a stark option for state workers: reduce pay by an additional 9.24 percent (equal to two furlough days) and reduce state contributions to employee health care by 30 percent.
The Feb. 10 letter responds to Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who asked the Analyst's Office what the Legislature could do if voters or lawmakers reject tax revenues proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The LAO offered $13.5 billion in alternatives, presuming under Leno's request that the ballot taxes did not succeed and other revenue ideas like eliminating enterprise zones would fail.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.sacbee.com ...
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Kentucky Senate Votes to End Guaranteed Pensions
John Ellis | Feb. 14, 2011, 11:45 AM | 708 | 10
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The Kentucky state Senate passed a bill Friday that would end guaranteed pensions for new state and local government employees.
The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that the bill was designed to address the public pension funds' growing liability. The paper reports:
Kentucky needs to stay ahead of the multibillion-dollar pension liability problem that is forcing tax hikes and painful spending reductions in other states, said Republican senators backing the bill. "It is just not affordable to go forward with our current plan, for state government or for local governments," Sen. Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, told his colleagues.
From a fairness perspective, taxpayers in the private sector struggle with layoffs, stagnant wages and benefits cuts, yet they're expected to support generous public pensions far better than anything they will get to enjoy, he said.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted 24-13, along party lines, to send Senate Bill 2 to the Democratic-led House, where its future appears grim.
Tags: State & Muni, State And Muni, Pensions, Debt, Municipal Debt, Pension Crisis, Deficit, Politics, Governance, Cutting Costs, State Governments, Spending | Get Alerts for these topics »
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/kentuck-senate-votes-to-end-guaranteed-pensions-2011-2#ixzz1DyCWabK1
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Chicago's Finances Are Even Worse Than Everyone Thought (don't fall of your chair!!)
www.businessinsider.com ^ | businessinsider.com
Just when Chicago's fiscal problems looked they couldn't get much worse, a new study shows that the city now faces nearly $23 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Chicago's unfunded pension obligation has increased 600% since 2000, according to the report, released by the city's Civic Federation. When combined with state pension debt, unfunded liabilities on public employee pensions would now cost each Chicago resident more than $11,934.
Much of the blame rests with Illinois' pension code, which allows local governments to avoid paying their contributions to public employee pension plans. This problem is exacerbated, the report says, as the number of retirees exceeds the number of active public employees.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
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Public Worker Unions Get Ready For A Showdown Over Wage, Pension Cuts
Business Insider ^ | 02/14/11 | Grace Wyler
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As state governments look for ways to cut spending and curb growing pension costs, unions fighting to turn the tide of public opinion and stop attempts to pare down wages, benefits and collective bargaining rights for public workers, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Leaders of the American Federation of Government employees are asking members to increase their contributions to the organization's PAC fund. Meanwhile, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, is devoting its political heft towards fighting plans to cut public worker compensation in states like New York and Ohio
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
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Unions want to overturn election result
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Feb. 16, 2011 |(29) Comments
Say you generally liked Gov. Scott Walker's move to rein in government labor costs but had a few doubts on his method. The last few days should have cleared that up nicely.
The public-sector union tantrums, meant to make lawmakers wobble, have an inadvertent message for the rest of us: Voters can vote all they want. We can elect a cheapskate governor and a Legislature to match. But come the moment, unions will have the last, loudest word.
They'll have it if takes marches. They'll have it if it takes what amounts to an illegal strike, with so many Madison teachers calling in sick Wednesday that the district closed schools. If it takes showing up for a we-know-where-your-family-is protest on Walker's Wauwatosa lawn while he was at work, the unions are sure they can outshout any election result.
This is exactly why Walker is right to limit the unions' power over government spending.
Walker, remember, is not removing unions' fundamental power to bargain for wages. He is demanding that state workers put 5.8% of their wages toward retirement and that they cover 12.6% of their health care premiums, which would still have them paying more than $100 less a month than the average schmoe. He is also proposing that elected officials determine the shape of employee benefits without having to bargain them, and this as much as the added cost has unions crying "unfair."
They insist this is the end of unionization in government, something to which they have as much right, they say, as anyone else.
But they miss a bedrock difference. Unions in the private sector are a way of organizing private interests, those of employees, against other private interests, those of a company's owners, for economic gain and for protection against unfairness. In government, workers are already protected against unfairness by civil service laws, and Walker has supported expanding those. Economically, government unions pit a private interest, that of employees, against the public's interest, that of taxpayers and voters.
We see the result. Walker's moves are prompted by the state's vast deficit. The alternative, he says, is to lay off thousands. Nonsense, charge the marchers: Just raise taxes. Unions and allies have for years been demanding more sales taxes, new business taxes and higher taxes on other people's incomes, all to keep the state flush and generous. We're taxed enough already, said a voting majority in November. Not yet, insist the unions that have become the largest players in Wisconsin politics precisely to counter any such voter sentiment.
Anyway, union leaders were conceding the pension and health care premiums by this week. They said they knew they'd have to pay more eventually - so when unions in December said such payments were tantamount to slavery, it must have been just maneuvering. Bygones, say unions, as long as Walker leaves them the power to set health benefits via bargaining. Leave that, they say, and it's peace.
Yeah? Recall how we got here. How is it that only in desperation will unions accept a deal that still leaves them better off than everyone else? How did we achieve not just next year's $3.3 billion deficit but the decade of structural deficits before? Easy: It's because labor costs for years have been outstripping taxpayers' capacity. That in turn was caused by officials, elected in a union-dominated political environment, buying labor peace via benefits, where it's harder for voters to see the costs adding up.
If the Legislature takes the 5% and 12% and doesn't reform collective bargaining, the 5% and 12% soon will be won back by unions. Any further savings are out the window. Walker talks of moving to consumer-driven benefits, as many companies have done, to restrain medical costs. That's anathema to unions, who will resist it contract by contract. Without bargaining reform, government costs will have taken only a pause in their ascent.
Union activists in Madison Tuesday spoke apocalyptically of "class war," hinting wildly at general strikes and takeovers of the Capitol. They correctly see their control of the state slipping and must figure that if they bring 13,000 shouting people to Madison, they can overrule the election.
Any worried legislators should keep in mind that Walker drew about five times that many votes in Dane County alone in November.
Patrick McIlheran is a Journal Sentinel editorial columnist. E-mail pmcilheran@journalsentinel.com
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Collective bargaining protesters, supporters clash at Statehouse
Vociferous throngs attend hearings on Senate Bill 5
Thursday, February 17, 2011 10:48 AM
Updated: Thursday, February 17, 2011 02:57 PM
By Jim Siegel
The Columbus Dispatch
JONATHAN QUILTER | DISPATCH
Supporters of Senate Bill 5 rallied today outside the Statehouse . . .
JONATHAN QUILTER | DISPATCH
. . . as the bill's opponents rallied inside.Well over 1,000 enthusiastic supporters and opponents of the Senate's proposed collective-bargaining overhaul enveloped the Statehouse this morning with cheers of "kill the bill" and "yes on 5," prior to the latest hearing on Senate Bill 5.
The spacious Statehouse atrium was packed mostly with public union workers outraged at efforts to end collective bargaining for state workers and significantly weaken the ability for local workers to bargain for their pay, benefits and working conditions.
Unions made a strong showing for the bill's first two hearings, and they were joined today by more than 200 red-shirt clad tea party activists pushing for the bill's passage. The mix verbally clashed in the Statehouse rotunda, where each side did its best to drown out the other.
Meanwhile, the atrium had the feel of a rock concert or an Ohio State football game, as union supporters cheered loudly when Senate sergeants-at-arms led their leaders across the balcony and into the hearing room.
Story continues belowAdvertisement More than 50 witnesses are scheduled to testify today. The first dozen or so will be supporters, and then opponents, including police, firefighters and Ohio Highway Patrol troopers' union leaders.
"This is a true test of democracy," said Sen. Kevin Bacon, chairman of the committee hearing the bill, during his opening comments.
The bill is not an attack on the middle class, public workers or jobs, Mike Wilson, head of the Cincinnati Tea Party, told a crowd gathered outside the Statehouse. "This bill is about math. Government has grown bigger than our taxpayers' ability to support it."
Rick Barry, a tea party member from Akron, said of public unions: "Their benefits are so much better than mine and their pay is so much better than mine, but they are still crying."
Wearing stickers that read "Taxpayer defender" and holding signs including those that read, "We're broke. Support SB 5," tea party activists said they wanted to show lawmakers that while they cannot compete with union numbers, there is support for changing collective-bargaining laws.
The group is transitioning from holding politicians accountable to showing support for their actions, said Tom Zawistowski, executive director of he Portage County Tea Party. "We want them to know that if they do it, we will work to keep them in office."
He added: "We don't have any more money. We have to make some hard decisions."
The Highway Patrol did not report any incidents during the morning, though some women standing in the atrium were heard saying they were moving out because things were getting heated.
Union leaders have characterized Senate Bill 5 as an attack on middle-class workers who need the ability to bargain in order to maintain a fair livelihood and uphold standards for safety and education. They also argue that Ohio's economic downturn, combined with tax cuts phased in over the past six years, are to blame for the state's troubling budget situation, not them.
Mark Sanders, president of the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters, said a review of the law may be justified, and he does not object to attempts to make bargaining more transparent.
"It is our fear that his legislation will destroy 27 years of public safety labor peace," he said. "Collective bargaining has been the only means for firefighters to gain safety standards."
Jay McDonald, president of the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio, stressed that police departments, including his own in Marion, have made concessions in recent days and years to help deal with declining budgets.
"Collective bargaining and our rights to binding arbitration are fundamental," he said. "We strongly believe the state made a covenant to police in 1983 when the right to strike was eliminated."
McDonald spoke of the work he and his family members have done as police officers, saying they earned their wages. He also questioned how a merit-based system could apply to police officers, who, in part, are "paid to run toward gunfire."
McDonald also couldn't pass up the chance to bring up the controversy over Gov. John Kasich's recent criticism of a Columbus police officer. "Occasionally we enforce a traffic law, and somebody might call a police officer an idiot."
Neither McDonald nor Sanders faced much tough questioning from the committee.
The committee also heard from Kristen Treadway, director of human resources for the city of Gahanna, who was critical of recent binding arbitration the city went through with one of its safety forces unions. She said "we have extreme concerns with the collective bargaining process."
Treadway talked of the struggle to get pay freezes and changes to health insurance as city tax revenue declined 13 percent from 2007 to 2009.
"The cost of bargaining and the cost of continual wage and benefit increases when the city is not growing are not sustainable," she said.
Jeff Berding, a Cincinnati councilman since 2005, urged lawmakers to "make this insanity stop."
He said Cincinnati's personnel costs are growing 18 percent annually. The city's contract with police gives officers an average of $87 an hour for working holidays and can let workers retire with six-figure sums for unused leave, totaling $93 million.
Over the years, Berding said, the collective bargaining law has tilted in favor of the unions. He said once more generous benefits or work conditions go into a contract, "they never come out."
"People are hurting and they are outraged to see these kinds of abuses of their hard-earned tax dollars," Berding said. He added, "I must share with you my disappointment to realize that the union leaders and their members prioritize pay and benefits above averting layoffs."
Sen. Tom Sawyer, D-Akron, told Berding that collective bargaining was implemented to avoid the numerous public worker strikes that were occurring, and it has worked. While things need refining, "clearly this is not a system that is as broken as the system that preceded it."
Addressing a prior witness who also referred to Cincinnati's union contracts, Sen. Eric Kearney, D-Cincinnati, noted that "you make it sound like it just happens miraculously. These things are bargained for. No one was forced to make these agreements."
jsiegel@dispatch.com
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Tenn. panel votes to bust state teachers' unions
washington examiner ^ | 2/17/11 | David Freddoso
We're seeing more and more of this:
NASHVILLE — The Senate Education Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to abolish collective bargaining between teachers unions and school boards across the state.The vote was 6-3, with all Republicans on the panel voting for the bill and all Democrats against.Sponsor Sen. Jack Johnson said passage of the bill — SB113 — will remove "an albatross from around the neck of our school boards across the state" and remove a roadblock to education reform.
Labor unions are part of the free market. But their historical rationale is to protect workers from exploitation by unscrupulous employers that don't follow the law or eschew basic workplace safety standards.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/02/tenn-panel-votes-bust-state-teachers-unions?utm_source=Tweed&utm_medium=twitter#ixzz1EFcpra2D
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
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Have teacher unions nuked the fridge? ( First NJ, now Wisconsin )
Hot Air ^ | February 17, 2011 10:12 am | Ed Morrissey
It started in New Jersey, where Chris Christie decided that the only way to real education reform was to challenge the powerful teachers union in the state, 200,000 members strong, and to do it loudly and boldly. That effort has spread through several states, with the latest battleground erupting in Wisconsin, where teachers staged a wildcat strike with mainly unwitting students in their tow. As Politico’s Jennifer Epstein reports, even Democrats have stopped defending tenure and other job protections demanded by teachers unions:
In Wisconsin, about 1,000 teachers called in sick Wednesday to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to strip their union bargaining rights.
In Washington, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie recounted his battle with his state’s teachers unions Wednesday, calling their leaders “greedy” and “selfish.”
And in Nevada, Indiana and Florida, Republican governors are targeting teacher contracts and work rules to fix a system they say is broken. “The status quo has put us at the bottom of the heap,” Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval told POLITICO.
The events point to a convergence that is remaking the politics of education. Teachers unions, historically one of the most powerful interest groups in American politics, are being besieged like never before – under attack from conservative GOP governors with a zeal for budget-cutting even while taking fire from some Democrats, including President Barack Obama, who has suggested he agrees that unions can be an impediment to better schools. … On both sides of the aisle, politicians are unhappy with how teachers are compensated, hired and fired, and are eager to introduce reforms.
Teachers unions dropped $40 million on the midterm election, which Democrats desperately needed — and which did them almost no good in the end anyway. The public has grown angry over decades of accelerated spending and federal interference in education with little to show for all of the resources sunk into it. The government protects education as a near-monopoly, where only the wealthy can have actual, real choice in how their children are educated. Union control of education has led to mediocrity rather than excellence, and sclerosis where there should be innovation.
Their tactics have grown threadbare as well, Patrick McIlheran argues in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. In fact, if teachers had hoped to generate sympathy for their plight in Wisconsin, they should instead prepare for some significant backlash to their wildcat strike:
The public-sector union tantrums, meant to make lawmakers wobble, have an inadvertent message for the rest of us: Voters can vote all they want. We can elect a cheapskate governor and a Legislature to match. But come the moment, unions will have the last, loudest word.
They’ll have it if takes marches. They’ll have it if it takes what amounts to an illegal strike, with so many Madison teachers calling in sick Wednesday that the district closed schools. If it takes showing up for a we-know-where-your-family-is protest on Walker’s Wauwatosa lawn while he was at work, the unions are sure they can outshout any election result.
This is exactly why Walker is right to limit the unions’ power over government spending.
Furthermore, taking the kids out of classes to march with them underscores another significant concern of the public regarding education. Most of the students marching with their teachers had no idea of the finer points of Governor Scott Walker’s proposal to bring teacher pension contributions in line with the private sector, a position the union called “slavery” just a couple of months before conceding the point. Nor do they understand the budget gap that Walker faces, or the nuances of economic policy, tax burdens, and growth policies. All they know is what their teachers told them — and that speaks to political indoctrination conducted in public schools by activist teachers, and the inability of parents and communities to weed out inappropriate politicking in classrooms.
Thirty years ago, the public saw teachers as underpaid and overworked professionals trying to prepare the next generation for leadership. These days, the teachers unions are doing their best to present an image of arrogant entitlement combined with an inability to withstand scrutiny and accountability. When that $40 million failed to rescue Democrats from their midterm debacle, it may well have been a nuke-the-fridge moment that brought a dawning realization of the political albatross that teachers unions have become.
Update: Kevin Binversie says the targeted schools in Wisconsin were not chosen by coincidence:
Beaver Dam and Watertown are direct shots at the Fitzgerald brothers — Jeff and Scott — who “just happen” to be the State Assembly Speaker and State Senate Majority Leader.
Meanwhile, Dodgeville, Richland, Sauk Prairie, and Mineral Point are in the 17th State Senate District; think that’s a message to State Senator Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center).
Can’t get any clearer that Racine United is a message to State Senator Van Wanggaard (R-Racine)
And, seriously, could they not hide Glendale / River Hills as a way to go after State Senator Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee?
Kevin calls his list “interesting.” I’d call it … instructional.
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Collective bargaining protesters (Tea Party, supporters clash at (Ohio) Statehouse
The Columbus Dispatch ^ | February 17, 2011 | Jim Siegel
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.....The spacious Statehouse atrium was packed mostly with public union workers outraged at efforts to end collective bargaining for state workers and significantly weaken the ability for local workers to bargain for their pay, benefits and working conditions.
Unions made a strong showing for the bill's first two hearings, and they were joined today by more than 200 red-shirt clad tea party activists pushing for the bill's passage. The mix verbally clashed in the Statehouse rotunda, where each side did its best to drown out the other.
Meanwhile, the atrium had the feel of a rock concert or an Ohio State football game, as union supporters cheered loudly when Senate sergeants-at-arms led their leaders across the balcony and into the hearing room.
More than 50 witnesses are scheduled to testify today. The first dozen or so will be supporters, and then opponents, including police, firefighters and Ohio Highway Patrol troopers' union leaders.
"This is a true test of democracy," said Sen. Kevin Bacon, chairman of the committee hearing the bill, during his opening comments.
The bill is not an attack on the middle class, public workers or jobs, Mike Wilson, head of the Cincinnati Tea Party, told a crowd gathered outside the Statehouse. "This bill is about math. Government has grown bigger than our taxpayers' ability to support it."
Rick Barry, a tea party member from Akron, said of public unions: "Their benefits are so much better than mine and their pay is so much better than mine, but they are still crying."
Wearing stickers that read "Taxpayer defender" and holding signs including those that read, "We're broke. Support SB 5," tea party activists said they wanted to show lawmakers that while they cannot compete with union numbers, there is support for changing collective-bargaining laws.
(Excerpt) Read more at dispatch.com ...
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110217/ap_on_re_us/us_wisconsin_budget_unions
Protests swell to 25,000 people at Wis. Capitol
For the moment, a group of Democratic senators have blocked the bill by refusing to attend a midday vote and leaving the Capitol. The sergeant at arms was looking for them.
Hours later, one of them told The Associated Press that the group had left Wisconsin.
Guess where they are? They got on a bus, left and went to another state.
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25,000?
Damn - thats freaking huge.
What part of "broke" do these people not get?
Also - i work for myself, and believe, when i tally u what they people get in terms of job security, pensions, benes, and all that is breing asked is that they pay 7% - damn - thy need to STFU!
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25,000?
Damn - thats freaking huge.
What part of "broke" do these people not get?
Also - i work for myself, and believe, when i tally u what they people get in terms of job security, pensions, benes, and all that is breing asked is that they pay 7% - damn - thy need to STFU!
7% ? That must be a typo! Here, it's 70% :o The average salary and benefit package, including pension, etc. for a Milwaukee Public School teacher is $100,005!!! Your damn right they don't get it! They're whining because "they're going to take away our collective bargaining agreement" whine "we'll have to contribute 7% to our overly-inflated pension fund" whine "we have to contribute to our health care plan (like everyone else)" whine. "this is going to put a lot of us in bankruptcy" boofvckinghoo Welcome to the party pal! >:( They're saying "we'd be willing to negotiate, but you're taking that away from us" Right ::) That's why it took 15 months to negotiate your last contract! We don't have 15 months! We're in a $3.6 billiondollar deficit! This proposal ensures no layoffs, no furloughs, etc., unlike the last reign.
Meanwhile, school districts across the state have been having to close because of all the teachers calling in sick. BUT! It's all in the name of the children >:( >:( >:(
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;)
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Nampa police: Tom Luna threatened, vehicle vandalized
Greg Kreller/IPT The pick-up truck belonging to Idaho Department of Education Superintendent Tom Luna was vandalized overnight outside his Nampa home. The superintendent and his family have been targets of threats as a reaction to Luna's education reform plan. Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011
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Posted: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 9:27 am | Updated: 12:52 pm, Tue Feb 15, 2011.
Nampa police: Tom Luna threatened, vehicle vandalized Idaho Press-Tribune staff newsroom@idahopress.com Idaho Press-Tribune | 10 comments
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NAMPA — Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna's vehicle was vandalized overnight at his Nampa home and he and his family have received threats, he told police.
“Yes, he has made us aware of threats to him and family members and we are looking into those, and we are aware of those, and we are doing what we can to provide protection,” Nampa Police Deputy Chief Craig Kingsbury said.
On Saturday night, a man who identified himself as a teacher reportedly showed up at Luna's mother's home in Nampa in order to speak with her about the superintendent's contentious education reform plan. Luna happened to be at his mother's house at the time, Department of Education spokeswoman Melissa McGrath said.
“The man was very angry... the superintendent did feel threatened,” she said. The man eventually left after Luna spoke to him for several minutes. Luna told the man it was an inappropriate place and time, and later filed a police report, McGrath said.
Officers were dispatched to Luna's house at 4:36 a.m. Tuesday and found evidence that suggests his pickup truck was vandalized sometime during the nighttime hours. Two tires were flattened and the word “Luna” was spray painted in black on the passenger side of the vehicle and then crossed out.
“It's become clear that the rhetoric that has been out there in opposition to this plan has escalated. People's attitude and people's behavior over the weekend and this morning is unacceptable. We encourage people to discuss this plan and let their opinions be known, but in a civic way,” McGrath said.
Idaho Education Association President Sherri Wood condemned the actions, saying that although the association may not agree with Luna's plan, it does not condone vandalism or threats.
“Twice in the past week, the Idaho Education Association has urged members to act with civility and professionalism in their contacts with policymakers over Superintendent Tom Luna's proposed legislation,” Wood said.
Wood also called on Luna to reciprocate civil behavior.
“Yesterday, according to news reports, he accused the IEA of 'union thuggery' and of sending emails listing officials' home addresses and phone numbers,” Wood said Tuesday morning in a press release in response to the incidents. “The IEA has not sent any such e-mails. The IEA has been involved in contentious battles thorughout our nearly 120-year history. We do not resort to violence or harassment to solve problems.”
•The police investigation is continuing. Anyone with information regarding the vandalism is asked to call Nampa Police Dispatch at 465-2257 or Crimestoppers at 343-COPS (2677).
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PROPOSED FIX [In Maine: $4.3 Billion Unfunded Promised Pensions Also Facing Taxpayers]
Maine State Treasurer Blog ^ | 2/18/2011 | Treasurer Bruce L. Poliquin
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During the past several weeks, I've received hundreds and hundreds of emails and phone calls regarding the $4.3 billion unfunded pension liability facing Maine taxpayers. This growing fiscal mess was created years ago by past governors and legislators negotiating with teacher and state employee union representatives. Retirement benefits were promised without setting aside enough money to pay for them. Then, in 2008, the stock and bond markets collapsed, eroding the pension plan investments and further widening the funding hole.
As per the Maine Constitution, taxpayers have until 2028 to pay-off this expanding pension debt.As per the Maine Constitution, taxpayers have until 2028 to pay-off this expanding pension debt. The increasing annual payments are crowding out funding for essential state services like education and road repair. The next fiscal year taxpayers owe $450 million in pension costs. As a comparison, state government will spend roughly $260 million to support the University and Community College Systems.
Last week Governor LePage released his proposed 2011-13 biennial budget. It includes a partial solution to this fiscal dilemma. The proposal does not cut the pension checks to retirees. It does not require massive layoffs of state workers. But, it does ask retirees to forego cost-of-living increases on their benefits for three years, and to accept a 2% cap thereafter. The plan also assumes that active employees contribute another 2% of salaries to their retirement. Lastly, it asks new hires and those not yet vested in the system to retire at age 65 instead of 62.
(Excerpt) Read more at maine.gov ...
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New Haven To Take Legal Action Against Police Union
NBC Connecticut ^
New Haven Mayor John DeStefano says he will pursue legal action against the police union for the union's Thursday protest outside City Hall.
About 200 officers marched from Police Headquarters to City Hall to protest the mayor's decision to lay off 16 officers as part of a plan to deal with the city's budget crisis. The officers blocked Church Street and demanded to speak to DeStefano about his decision.
A spokesperson for the mayor says the city is aware that many of the officers who participated in the protest were on duty -- something that is not permitted.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcconnecticut.com ...
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What do "PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS" build?
Bump for an answer to this question.
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Bump for an answer to this question.
Debt, gridlock, mayhem and indirectly through their incompetence more prisons, debt collection agencies and embarassing monuments to the United States.
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Public employees should not be able to collectively bargain in the first place. Its created a lopsided situation to where the taxpayer is really hosed in this.
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Public employees should not be able to collectively bargain in the first place. Its created a lopsided situation to where the taxpayer is really hosed in this.
almost all public employees in NYC should take an immediate 10% cut in salary....they should keep their pensions, but firemen and police should not be allowed to retire until they are at least 55 and should not calculate overtime into their pensions..this is whats bankrupting us
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Most people don't realize that NY pensioners don't pay NYS income tax on their pensions, and can go out at 75 percent and pay no fed or state taxes if they go out on a disability. Its a complete scam on the taxpayer.
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it'll suck for one generation, if you take away the bullshit guarantees they were given by corrupt leaders with no economic responsibility.
But after that, when employees are paid what they are worth, with reasonable retirement packages, things might improve and states might NOT go broke.
I remember a superintendent here in FL found a way to get his retirement package, which was 170,000 a year, then work "in the interim" while they searched for his replacement, and he ended up getting DOUBLE paychecks for 3 or 4 years. Then, he took a cushy college job of course, and keeps getting his 150k per year retirement pay. AND he got two years salary "severance" package... in addition to his new larger salary.
legal, but WOW.... definitely not something that made common sense economically, to give a person that kind of position to call those shots and work those loopholes.
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Most people don't realize that NY pensioners don't pay NYS income tax on their pensions, and can go out at 75 percent and pay no fed or state taxes if they go out on a disability. Its a complete scam on the taxpayer.
agreed...I hope Gov Cuomo puts a stop to this but I'm not optimistic..I may have to leave NY state soon
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Cuomo is doing a good job so far.
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Cuomo is doing a good job so far.
[/quote}
He is, but its all talk so far..no action yet....plus Sheldon Silver has more power than the Governor...if Shelly doesn't go along nothing gets done
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The property taxes in ny are beyond criminal and its killing everything. Silver needs to gwt out of the way. People can't affoerd this chaos anymore.
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The property taxes in ny are beyond criminal and its killing everything. Silver needs to gwt out of the way. People can't affoerd this chaos anymore.
New York could actually become a powerhouse state again if it would do like Texas and Florida and drop the state income tax.....people would begin moving back and corporations would be coming here in droves
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I know a few cops who are fleecing the system so bad you would scream.
Until we get this situation with OT and padding pensions the last three years w obscene ot and other chaos, things will never change.
Same with the LIRR, did you see the scam those bums pulled with all of them going out on disability right before retirement?
Unreal.
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It just seems like no one is in control here in NY when it comes to state and city workers pulling these scams.....where are the supervisors?...how come they aren't being held accountable???
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Those people don't say squat because they rely upon these govt unions and their members for support and money for elections. Its awful.
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The Illinois Pension Nightmare ($3.7 Billion needed to pay for just one year!)
Economic Policy Journal ^ | 02/18/2011 | Economic Policy Journal
The state of Illinois hopes to issue $3.7 billion in bonds, next week. The funds will be used to pay this year's pension payments.
Writes NYT, which is starting to get the picture of the serious problems in the muni market:
(Excerpt) Read more at economicpolicyjournal.co m ...
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as a teacher in my last year working.... i remember the staff in the office telling me to take every friday off til the end of the year to use up those sick days I had accrued. I was a full-time student by that point in masters program, so i happily accepted... but it just seemed so weird... it wasn't the secretary's money, so she didn't care.
Supplies that went without being inventoried... computers that just walked away. every classroom "Needing" a "smart board", a $20k to $40 system to replace overhead transparencies.
I'm no expert... but there definitely seemed like a ton of waste going on. I have no idea how it is sustainable.
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City taxpayers foot 90% of municipal pensions
By SUSAN EDELMAN
Last Updated: 6:16 PM, July 11, 2010
Posted: 2:10 AM, July 11, 2010
Taxpayers kick in an average $8.60 for every dollar that city employees contribute to their pensions, a sweet deal costing the Big Apple a bundle.
Even though their own retirements are less secure, as private businesses have shifted from traditional pensions to riskier savings plans like 401(k)s, taxpayers' support for rock-solid public employee pension plans is growing. That's because pension funds are guaranteed to grow 8 percent a year -- and taxpayers have to make up the difference if they don't.
Taxpayers' share of city pension costs has skyrocketed more than 900 percent in the last decade -- from $703.1 million in 2000 to $6.5 billion in 2009, according to the city comptroller's annual reports.
The cost is expected to hit $7.6 billion this fiscal year and $8.7 billion next year.
BIG DIPPERS: CITY UNION CHIEFS PULL TWO SALARIES
"It's a double-whammy for taxpayers," said E.J. McMahon, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
"If they're privately employed, they shoulder the risks of saving for their own retirement. At the same time, they have to pay a steadily mounting cost of guaranteed pensions for government workers."
Teachers get the biggest bang for their pension contributions -- the city puts in $15.50 for every $1 they contribute.
Taxpayers pay $10 for every $1 firefighters put in, $9 for every $1 from cops and $5.60 for every $1 from transit, sanitation and other civil servants, the 2009 report shows.
"The cost has risen because employee benefits were dramatically increased in 2000, just as the [stock] market began to collapse," said John Murphy, former executive director of the New York City Employee Retirement System, NYCERS, the largest city pension fund.
"In retrospect, it was one of the most irresponsible things to have done," he said.
Many private companies cut back or suspended matching contributions to employee 401(k) plans after the most recent dramatic market downturn in 2008. Some have begun to restore contributions, depending on profits.
Teachers hired after 2008 contribute 4.85 percent of their salaries for their first 10 years, then 1.85 percent a year thereafter.
Cops and firefighters make annual pension contributions depending on their age at swearing in, at most 8 percent at age 20. But in a benefit called "Increased Take Home Pay," the city subsidizes 5 percent of that.
Cops and firefighters are guaranteed an 8.25 percent return on their contributions, and can take loans from the plans up to twice a year,at 4 percent interest.
It's only fair, said Anthony Garvey, who recently retired as executive director of the Police Pension Fund.
He said the benefits befit the Finest and Bravest who risk "getting shot or running into burning buildings."
Retire it's on us
Taxpayers kicked in $7.35 billion to the city pension funds last fiscal year, while employees contributed $853.5 million.
An average of: $8.60 to $1
TEACHERS
Average pension: $54,268
Taxpayer contribution: $15.50 to $1
FIREFIGHTERS
Average pension: $53,347
Taxpayer contribution: $10 to $1
POLICE
Average pension: $41,319
Taxpayer contribution: $9.13 to $1
SANIT., TRANSIT, OTHER
Average pension: $24,889
Taxpayer contribution: $5.60 to $1
Source: Comprehensive Annual Financial Report of the NYC Comptroller for fiscal year 2009.
susan.edelman@nypost.com
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Feb. 9, 2011, 9:49 p.m. EST
Fire, Police Unions Fight for Bonuses
By Sean Gardiner and Michael Howard Saul
New York City's police and fire departments have a historic rivalry.
Their commissioners have clashed in the recent past over jurisdictional issues like which department should take the lead in a disaster. There have been debates and hearings over who should be the primary agency in certain emergencies such as pulling people out of the East River. Every year they hold a "Battle of the Badges" event in which cops box firefighters in Madison Square Garden and the fighting among the two agencies rarely is contained to the boxing ring.
But on Wednesday the heads of the police and firefighter unions stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the steps of City Hall united against Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who they both called a "liar." What brought the rivals together? Money.
For the past month, Mr. Bloomberg has renewed a call to eliminate a $12,000-a-year pension supplement for about 60,000 retired police officers and firefighters that the mayor has repeatedly called "Christmas bonuses." Mr. Bloomberg said the city is "now kicking in more than $600 million a year to subsidize it" at a time when they're trying to close a $2 to $4 billion budget gap for the upcoming fiscal year.
"Nobody wants to get cut back—I understand that," Mr. Bloomberg said on Wednesday.
But, he said, "We have to make a decision. Do we want to send out Christmas bonuses or have more teachers? It's that kind of decision."
At their joint news conference, Stephen Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, and Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, bristled at the suggestion that Variable Supplement Fund pension payouts were "bonuses."
"He suggests it's a Christmas bonus as if the city is reaching into its general fund and giving the police officers and firefighters a Christmas bonus," Mr. Lynch said. "No. That is our money."
The union chiefs said that the Variable Supplement Fund payouts date back to negotiated contracts between the city and the fire and police unions in the late 1960s. At that point Mayor John Lindsay wanted the ability to invest money the city was setting aside for police and fire pensions in the stock market. At that time, the law required that the pension-fund money could only be invested in fixed-income securities like bonds and mortgages. In exchange, the unions sought to increase their pensions from 50% of their final salaries to 60% percent.
Instead of agreeing to the union's demands, Robert Linn, a labor-negotiations consultant, said a deal was struck in 1968 in which the fire and police unions allowed the city to invest their pension money in the stock market in exchange for receiving an enhanced pension payout. Since the payout was based on a percentage of the profits from what the city made on their stock market investments, initially the deal was seen as a "win-win" for city and unions.
But PBA officials said their retired officers received only minimal and intermittent payouts for the first dozen years of the deal because the stock market performed poorly during the 1970s. However, a boom in the market in the mid-1980s inflated the amount of in the Variable Supplement Fund by hundreds of millions of dollars, money which could have resulted in their retirees receiving payouts of $20,000 or more a year, the officials said.
Mr. Linn, who was also New York City's Director of Labor Relations from 1983 to 1989, said that from the city's perspective the 1968 deal ultimately favored the unions, who shared in any profits but were not responsible for compensating any downturns in the market. And when the market took off in the 1980s the city was facing large payouts.
"The administration was clear that we wanted to change this benefit," said Mr. Linn, who served under Mayor Edward Koch. "We thought the benefit from the '60s was potentially an explosive cost and we wanted to set it at a fixed cost."
A major stock market crash in 1987, which appeared to have wiped out all the gains to the fund, gave city negotiators, like Linn, the opening they needed to convince police and fire union officials to accept a fixed benefit for their members instead of a return that was tied to market profits.
The fixed pension supplement paid the retired firefighters and police officers $2,500 a year. The amount, it was agreed, would go up by $500 a year until maxing out in 2007 at $12,000 a year per retiree. Right now there are approximately 60,000 police officers and firefighters eligible for the pension supplement, Mssrs. Lynch and Cassidy said. Under the terms of the 1988 deal, they are to receive this payout for life.
Mr. Linn said that no one at the negotiating tables 22 years ago could have projected that the stock market would have taken off as it did, increasing six-fold over the next 20 years. But because it did, Mr. Linn said the deal he negotiated "saved the city billions of dollars. It turned out to be a tremendous savings to the city."
However, a spokesman for the mayor, Marc LaVorgna, added that these days, "The fund does not pay for itself." "It's city taxpayers funding it and unfortunately it's no longer something we can afford."
Mr. Lynch said that as part of the deal the city also was allowed to take $75 million from the pension funds to be used for other city expenses. Mr. Cassidy said as part of the deal firefighters agree to push back to five the number of years it took for future hires to reach top pay. He said that concession alone saved the city "billions of dollars" over the years.
Mssrs. Lynch and Cassidy say that their predecessors who negotiated the deal in 1988 were widely criticized by their memberships for taking a too conservative approach. They said that for two decades the city has reaped the benefits of the deal which is estimated to have provided the city with more than $1 billion in funds to invest over the years. Any recent financial problems the city is facing, the union heads say, are because of poor investments not the Variable Supplement Fund payments.
"A deal was struck," said Mr. Cassidy. "If he [the mayor] doesn't like it, too bad. It's a deal."
Write to Sean Gardiner at sean.gardiner@wsj.com and Michael Howard Saul at michael.saul@wsj.com
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/story/print?guid=da8598fa-3491-11e0-bdc8-012128040cf6
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Someone again remind me why Madoff is in Jail?
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Gov. Cuomo speech drowned out with Charles Barron-led yells of 'Tax the Rich!'
Ny Daily News ^ | 2/21/11 | GLENN BLAIN
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Gov. Cuomo's speech on Sunday night to the Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators was interrupted with chants of "Tax the rich!" led by City Councilman Charles Barron.
Cuomo received a warm welcome as he began to address the group, but within moments Barron (D-Brooklyn) did a Kanye West and stole the spotlight.
"Shame on you," Barron yelled at Cuomo after walking from the back of the Albany Convention Center to the front.
"Stop the cuts," Barron said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
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Barron is an idiot who is basically out to serve himself..he has no credibility whatsoever
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Barron= A little Bitch
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50 Wisconsins. There are 49 more states waiting to erupt
National Review ^ | 02/21/2011 | Kevin Williamson
There are 49 more Wisconsins waiting to erupt. At least half the states are positioned to be bankrupted by their government-employee pension systems, but even the best-governed states are facing insolvency because of a factor that is mostly beyond their control: Medicaid. It’s interesting that the first battle is being fought in Wisconsin, but that is mainly because Illinois, the true-blue embodiment of fiscal imprudence, has basically surrendered without a fight.
What does this mean for near-term politics? Leave it to USA Today to get it exactly wrong:
In last year’s congressional elections, AFSCME, the largest public-employee union, gave $2.2 million to Democrats and $10,000 to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that tracks money in politics. In 2008, AFSCME, founded in Wisconsin in 1932, spent $2.3 million opposing Sen. John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent.
Union support will be vital to Democrats next year, especially in battleground states such as Wisconsin, to offset the flow of corporate funds into campaigns allowed by a 2010 Supreme Court decision. Last year, 11.9% of U.S. workers were represented by unions, down from 20% in 1983, the Labor Department says.
“Offset the flow of corporate funds.” This is the old “Big Business Backs Republicans” canard. It is not true. It has not been true for a long time. It would be difficult to find any Big Business sector that backs Republicans as lopsidedly as unions back Democrats. (And let me remind you for the 11,000th time that Barack Obama & Co. were carried to power on a wave of Wall Street money, with Goldman Sachs leading the way.)
For instance, take the software industry, a very big business indeed. Out of the five biggest recipients of the software racket’s political money in 2009–10, all five were Democrats: Patty Murray, Suzan DelBene, Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer, and Harry Reid.
What about the mortgage bankers and the real-estate gang, a.k.a. the Committee to Reinflate the Bubble? Three out of five of the bankers’ top recipients in the last cycle were Democrats — Paul Kanjorski, John Adler, and Barney Frank, purported scourge of the banking world. The real-estate lobby’s top recipients were three Democrats — Schumer again, Alexander Giannoulias, and Kirsten Gillibrand — one independent trying to defeat a Republican — Charlie Crist — and one Republican — Carly Fiorina.
What about the fine gentlemen of the private-equity industry, fighting tooth and talon to defend the carried-interest tax rules that give them an enviably low tax rate? Their top dogs were Democrats Schumer (again!) Gillibrand (again!), Reid (again!) Michael Bennet, and one Republican, Mark Kirk.
Republicans do kill with dentists and coal miners. (Although Democrat Joe Manchin was the blacklung lobby’s No. 2 recipient.)
When people scream about the wicked evil corporations and their influence in Washington, they usually are really talking about the FIRE businesses — that’s finance, insurance, and real estate. Taken together, these industries do, at the moment, slightly favor Republicans, though their two largest recipients were — see if you can guess — Schumer and Gillibrand, again and again. But it is a myth that Republicans own Wall Street, or that Wall Street owns Republicans. As Open Secrets puts it: “The sector contributes generous sums to both parties, with Republicans traditionally collecting more than Democrats. Yet in the past two election cycles, bankers have suddenly shifted their cash toward Democrats.” But look at the charts for 1990 through 2010: hardly a runaway advantage for the Republicans, and nothing like the 220-to-1 advantage the Democrats enjoy when it comes to treasury-raiding union goons like AFSCME.
The narrative of Wall Street vs. Labor in the race to buy political influence is a false one. As often as not, Wall Street and Labor are on the same side, as they were when they helped elect Barack Obama.
What do Wall Street titans and Wisconsin government employees have in common? Above-average incomes, for one thing, and tight relationships with government that help them to maintain them. You bailed out the first gang of miscreants in 2008, and a lot of them came back for more. You bailed out the second gang of miscreants under the stimulus, and a lot of them are coming back for more, too. And they will keep coming back for more until one of two things happens:
A. There’s no money left, or
B. We stop them.
My money’s on A. Where’s yours?
— Kevin D. Williamson is a deputy managing editor of National Review and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism, just published by Regnery.
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State workers to rally for pensions, pay (Oklahoma)
Tulsa World ^ | 2/21/2011 | Staff
Hundreds of state employees are expected at the Oklahoma Capitol to urge lawmakers to retain their pension benefits and implement a total compensation package that would include better salaries.
Although Monday, President's Day, is a state holiday, the state House of Representatives and the Oklahoma Senate will be in session.
Legislative leaders say reforming state pension systems is a top priority this year because of their collective $16.5 billion unfunded liability. But state workers want their pension benefits to remain as they are, according to officials at the Oklahoma Public Employees Association, which represents about 10,000 of the state's 36,000 workers.
State workers also want better salaries. The OPEA says state workers' salaries are on average 16 percent below salaries in the private sector.
(Excerpt) Read more at tulsaworld.com ...
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Amazing - the private sector has dealt with ths horrible economy for over 3 years now and these pieces of shit and mini-madoffs areonl now realizing the gig is up?
I have not an ounce of sympathy for these people. None.
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no sympathy here as well..I haven't had a raise in 6 years....
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NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE www.nationalreview.com PRINT
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Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector
By Yuval Levin
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/260241
Posted on February 21, 2011 9:38 AM
Governor Scott Walker has already achieved something significant in Wisconsin—by focusing on both the level of government-worker benefits and their power to bargain collectively for those benefits, he has brought union officials and (apparently) many public employees in his state to say that they would accept benefit cuts. They are taking their stand, instead, on the power to bargain collectively for future benefits (rather than only for wages). This, union officials (as well as many observers around the country, including President Obama) insist is a basic right, and the effort to curtail it is (in Obama’s words) “an assault on unions” that would leave workers unprotected. And anyway, they argue, collective-bargaining rights have nothing to do with the problems confronting Wisconsin and other states.
But this ignores the crucial differences between public and private workers—differences that give public employees enormous advantages over both their employers and their private-sector counterparts, and that argue against collective bargaining in the public sector. Daniel DiSalvo very ably and thoroughly explains some of those differences here.
Put simply, public employees (even when they are not organized, let alone able to bargain collectively) have some major advantages over their private-sector counterparts. They are guarded by generous civil-service protections—the most significant of which predate public-sector unionism, having been put in place, ironically, to combat the inclination of urban political machines to use the public sector as a powerbase. And most government employees work in non-competitive fields where their employer has a monopoly, so their jobs are not threatened by competitors, and are not dependent on their ability to work efficiently and so keep their employer competitive.
When they organize—merely as an interest group, quite apart from formal collective bargaining—they have several more immense advantages. By leveraging their numbers and resources, their organizations can become major players in politics. At election time, public employees can therefore play a large role in choosing their own employers or bosses (by getting certain people elected and not others), which of course no private-sector union can do. At all levels of government today, public-worker unions are among the biggest political donors. Between elections, they can use that political power to influence those elected officials and the political process more generally to improve their pay, benefits, or conditions, and also to increase demand for their services through legislation that increases the size or role of government (as the California prison guards union was instrumental in passing the state’s three-strikes law, for instance) or that prevents competition (as the teachers’ unions do in opposing school-choice programs). In all these ways, public workers have enormous powers that private workers could not dream of, and all without actual formal collective bargaining.
When you add collective bargaining to that mix, the unions gain the power to make in private negotiations decisions that should be made in public deliberations—decisions about public priorities and public budgets. And they turn public employees into a formal procedural adversary of the public they serve. This presents some serious problems to our democratic system, problems that traditionally kept even the biggest advocates of unionism from supporting collective bargaining with the government. This is why Franklin Roosevelt said that “collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” It is why George Meany (the first president of the AFL-CIO) said it was “impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
Public employees in many states (and to a limited extent also at the federal level) are nonetheless permitted to bargain collectively for precisely the reasons above: they gained that permission as their unions gained political power over the years. And they have often used their collective bargaining powers to increase not only their members’ pay (an increase which shows up rather directly and immediately in public budgets) but also their benefits, and especially retirement benefits (which often do not show up on the books for years and so are easier to get from cash-strapped public officials). As DiSalvo notes in his essay:
since 2002, for every $1-an-hour pay increase, public employees have gotten $1.17 in new benefits; private-sector workers, meanwhile, have received just 58 cents in added benefits. Of special interest to the unions has been health care: Across the nation, 86% of state- and local-government workers have access to employer-provided health insurance, while only 45% of private-sector workers do. In many cases, these plans involve meager contributions from employees, or none at all — in New Jersey, for instance, 88% of public-school teachers pay nothing toward their insurance premiums.
And many of these benefits continue to be provided to retired employees, not only current ones. This is why many governors eager to get their finances under control have had to start by confronting public employees, and it is why Wisconsin’s governor has targeted his efforts on one important cause of the problem—collective bargaining for benefits. Walker would not even strip state employees of the power to bargain collectively for wages, only for benefits which are easier to hide from the public. And he would not, of course, strip them of their other great advantages over private-sector workers, which are functions of their rights as citizens who also happen to be employed by the government they elect, and so could not be taken from them.
The notion that this involves an assault on some inalienable right to collective bargaining with the public is preposterous. Such collective bargaining is a privilege public workers have obtained by exercising their political muscle, and state officials around the country are right to try to roll it back to the extent they can.
In the long run, the real solution to the growing conflict between public employees and the public they work for is to limit the government’s size and reach and to contract out more of its remaining functions to the private sector, so as not only to increase the government’s efficiency but also to minimize the conflict between its obligations to the people it serves and its obligations to the people it employs. But in the meantime, it is also necessary and appropriate to pare back some of the enormous power built up by public workers over the past few decades.
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Thousands Rally Under Capitol Dome In Olympia(Washington State)
KIROTV ^ | February 21, 2011 | KIROTV
OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Union members, students, parents and even former presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich rallied in Olympia on Monday, taking advantage of the holiday to lobby against budget cuts and to show solidarity with Wisconsin's embattled union for state employees.
The Washington State Patrol estimated that 2,000 people rallied under the Capitol Dome, said KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Senior Political reporter Essex Porter.
Washington state employees chanted, sang songs and waved signs in the Capitol Rotunda in a rally supporting unions and state employees in Wisconsin. Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich addressed the group wearing a union T-shirt from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Several other groups took advantage of the Presidents Day holiday to demonstrate -- college students urging funding for higher education and the Washington State PTA asking legislators to protect students from budget cuts.
Last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker targeted public employees in a massive budget cut proposal, calling for cuts to their benefits and limiting their ability to collectively bargain on wage issues. Walker has said his proposal is about cutting state and local spending for years to come, but acknowledges that if approved, it could cripple unions.
Kucinich said he hoped the rally in Olympia would ripple across the country to show solidarity to union workers in Wisconsin.
"You cannot have a democracy if you don't have people in a position to be able to negotiate for their wages and to have decent benefits," Kucinich said, lauding Washington as being a "bastion for workers' rights," where people have the capacity to push back.
Washington is one of the most unionized states in the country, according to a January U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, reminded the crowd that collective bargaining ended child labor and created the 40-hour work week.
"Collective bargaining is not the problem," she said.
Most state employees have Monday off and Tuesday is an unpaid furlough day.
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Updated: Tue., Feb. 22, 2011, 3:18 PM
Battle of Wisconsin: Proxy civil war
By MICHAEL A. WALSH
Posted: 10:00 PM, February 21, 2011
Let's be clear about what's at stake in Wisconsin, where the battle between Gov. Scott Walker and the public-employees' unions is now well and truly joined. It's not just about balancing the state budget, nor simply about collective bargaining. It's not even about the future of the labor movement.
It's about the future of the country and who is to be master -- the voters or the "public servants."
Wisconsin is a test battleground in the War of 2012, with both sides pouring in men and materiel in a proxy fight. It's the Tea Party, as represented by Walker and the state Republicans, versus a labor-union/political racket as morally rancid as anything in "On the Waterfront," fronted by the "sick" teachers and abetted by President Obama and his Organizing for America community agitators.
Obama and the Democrats understand full well the importance of this fight: Without public-sector union support, they're in big trouble. After all, such unions have only been generally legal since the '60s, and -- given the political will -- can be rolled back.
"For this generation of union members, the attack on Wisconsin's public sector represents our Pearl Harbor," said John Samuelsen, president of local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, who's promised to lead a delegation from New York to Madison. "We in the labor movement cannot allow this to happen."
Nor can the Democrats. Unions such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the National Education Association and the Service Employees International Union give hundreds of millions of dollars to Democrats -- some $171 million in 2010 alone. They give almost nothing to Republicans.
Where does that money come from? From union members' dues. In what is effectively a criminal enterprise were it not for the moment legal, public-union leaders negotiate ever-larger pay and benefits from the very politicians to whom they then kick back "campaign contributions." All at taxpayer expense.
What Walker is trying to do is break this vicious cycle. He'd limit collective bargaining for most public unions (exempting cops and firefighters) to wages only -- excluding pensions, benefits and work rules. He'd also get the state out of the union-dues collection business and force the unions to be re-certified by a vote of their membership each year.
For his effrontery in trying to close a $3.6 billion deficit, he has been rewarded with hordes of noisy protesters, schoolchildren used as human shields by their teachers and the spectacle of cowardly Democratic state senators fleeing the jurisdiction for the People's Republic of Illinois.
The unions have already capitulated on Walker's demands to start contributing to their pension and health-care costs. But they're digging in on the collective bargaining issues -- which tells you exactly what's really at stake in this dispute: their political muscle.
The outcome in Madison will determine what happens around the country -- not just in Ohio, the likely next battleground, or New York and California, but also in Washington, DC.
It's a fight the nation's private sector can't afford to lose.
"All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public-personnel management. The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government-employee organizations. The employer is the whole people . . . "
Walker? House Speaker John Boehner? No, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, back in 1937.
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Charles Barron is the most eloquent ape I have ever come in contact with since SAMSON broke out of the Bronx Zoo and defecated on the curb next to where my car was parked.
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Barons' rant gave cuomo probably 2 extra points in the polls.
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FL Gov Rick Scott just said there is nothing wrong with Collective bargaining...
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Post the whole article 240.
Regardless of what he said, the idea the public unions even exist is insane. Its another part of the reason this nation is on the verge of collapse on a state and municipal level.
Of course I don't expect libs and like minded mini-maddoffs to grasp basic math, but come on already! Should we wait until the whole nation is in ambers before acknowledging reality ?
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49984.html
Florida Gov. Rick Scott voiced tentative support for collective bargaining agreements — so long as union members are aware of what their leaders are negotiating for.
“My belief is as long as people know what they’re doing, collective bargaining is fine,” Scott said Tuesday on WFLA Radio. That is, he said, “as long as people know what they are voting for.”
Continue Reading Text Size-+reset Listen
POLITICO 44
Scott did say, however, that he’s concerned about fairness, especially when it comes to public sector employees. “When I look at state workers, I have to say I’m going to be fair to taxpayers. … Let’s pick pay as an example; you know, I’ve never been anywhere where people think they’re paid perfectly fairly.”
In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans in the state Legislature are pushing a bill that would restrict collective bargaining for most public sector employees. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich is supporting a state Senate bill that would ban collective bargaining for public employee unions. Potential Republican presidential hopefuls, including Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, have spoken out in support of the bill.
Scott said he has no plans to support similar legislation introduced in Florida but looks forward to the debates elsewhere around the country.
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By STEVEN MALANGA
www.wsj.com
Government workers have taken to the streets in Madison, Wis., to battle a series of reforms proposed by Gov. Scott Walker that include allowing workers to opt out of paying dues to unions. Everywhere that this "opt out" idea has been proposed, unions have battled it vigorously because the money they collect from dues is at the heart of their power.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) on the budget battles in Washington and back home.
.Unions use that money not only to run their daily operations but to wage political campaigns in state capitals and city halls. Indeed, public-sector unions especially have become the nation's most aggressive advocates for higher taxes and spending. They sponsor tax-raising ballot initiatives and pay for advertising and lobbying campaigns to pressure politicians into voting for them. And they mount multimillion dollar campaigns to defeat efforts by governors and taxpayer groups to roll back taxes.
Early last year, for example, Oregon's unions spearheaded a successful battle to pass ballot measures 66 and 67, which collectively raised business and income taxes in the state by an estimated $727 million annually. Led by $2 million from the Oregon Education Association and $1.8 million from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), unions contributed an estimated 75% of the nearly $7 million raised to promote the tax increases, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
Also in 2010, teachers unions and public-safety unions in Arizona were influential players in the successful ballot campaign to increase the state's sales tax to 6.6% from 5.6% to raise an additional $1 billion. Some state business groups also supported the tax increase in the vain hope that the legislature would roll back business and investment taxes. The public unions, by contrast, wanted the tax hike precisely to avoid government spending cuts.
Slideshow: Teachers Revolt
Public employee protests spread across the Midwest.
.In Washington state there was a ballot measure last November that would have raised $2 billion by imposing an income tax on those earning more than $200,000. The media portrayed the political fight as a battle among the rich. That's because William H. Gates Sr, father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, supported the tax, while Microsoft's current chief executive, Steve Ballmer and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos opposed it.
But unions were the real power behind the scenes. According to Ballotpedia.com, state and national SEIU locals gave $2.5 million, while the National Education Association and Washington teachers union locals contributed $900,000 to the $6 million campaign for the new income tax. In the end, Washingtonians voted down the tax, in part because they feared it would eventually be expanded to everyone.
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David Gothard
.This was not the first time that government unions targeted upper-income earners. In 2004, California labor groups—including the California Teachers Association, the SEIU, and health interests such as the California Council of Community Health Agencies—led a successful $4.7 million campaign to raise the state income tax on those making more than $1 million and devote the money to health-care funding. In all, public unions gave $1 million to the Proposition 63 effort, while public health groups donated another $1.3 million, according to HealthVote.org.
In New York in 2008-09, then-Gov. David Paterson balked at tax increases and proposed budget cuts in an attempt to come to grips with the state's growing fiscal crisis. In response, unions launched a barrage of attack ads. The New York State United Teachers union spent $750,000 advocating against a cap on property taxes. The state's health-care unions (and hospitals) mounted a $1 million radio campaign against Medicaid cuts. In the end, the legislature raised a host of taxes, including higher levies on the incomes of those earning more than $200,000.
Across the Hudson, New Jersey's powerful teachers union has led the fight against Gov. Chris Christie's efforts to cut spending. The New Jersey Education Association collects about $100 million a year in dues from its 203,000 members; last spring the union spent $300,000 a week, according to the head of the union, for radio ads urging tax increases on the rich instead of budget cuts. But Mr. Christie held firm and his budget was passed largely as he proposed it.
Public unions are also among the biggest players in national politics. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Afscme) has been the third-biggest contributor to federal campaigns over the past 20 years, having given $43 million. The National Education Association is number eight with $31 million in contributions, while the SEIU—half of whose 2.2 million members are government workers—is No. 10, with $29 million in campaign donations.
Unlike businesses and industry groups that are also big givers but tend to split their donations between the parties, some 95% of government workers' donations has gone to the Democratic Party, whose members are far more likely to favor raising taxes and boosting spending than are members of the Republican Party.
The union strategy is finally beginning to encounter pushback. Last year, supporters of Gov. Christie, anticipating a union onslaught, set up a group called Reform Jersey Now to back the newly elected governor with a public relations campaign in his first budget battle. The group spent about $624,000, with contributions from business PACs, including those representing the state's construction industry, and from money donated by the Republican Governors Association.
And in New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has urged business groups to counter union efforts to defeat his budget, which cuts spending by $3.7 billion. In response, a group that calls itself the Committee to Save New York, financed by business groups and executives, has launched a $10 million advertising campaign in support of Gov. Cuomo's planned spending cuts for Medicaid and education, as well as his efforts to cut the cost of state workers' pensions.
If Gov. Walker succeeds in Wisconsin, it's likely that other reformers will follow his lead and explore ways to restrict public-sector unions' use of members' dues. Tax advocates in California, for instance, have proposed an initiative that would require a government union to gain the approval of individual members in order to divert dues into political campaigns. Such measures would give opponents around the country a new playbook to follow in countering the rich resources and deep influence of public unions over taxes and spending.
Mr. Malanga is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of "Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer" (Ivan R. Dee, 2010).
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February 23, 2011
Collective Bargaining Doesn't Work In the Public Sector
By Steven Malanga
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2011/02/23/collective_bargaining_doesnt_work_in_the_public_sector_98884.html#
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Shortly after California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, open warfare broke out in the union movement between leaders of public and private worker groups.
In the Washington Post, an anonymous lieutenant of AFL-CIO president George Meany criticized the aggressive stance of Jerry Wurf, head of American Federation of State County and Municipal workers, in trying to defeat Prop 13, which capped property taxes. The problem, the Post pointed out, was that the AFL-CIO's members were the "taxpaying employers" of Wurf's workers and favored the tax and spending limitations of Prop. 13. "Jerry's big problem with the tax thing lies in convincing the rest of the trade union movement of the legitimacy of the positions he has taken," said the AFL-CIO official.
What a difference a few decades makes. Today, public sector unions dominate the union movement, including the AFL-CIO, and have become the chief lobbyists for higher taxes and more government spending in America. Meanwhile, defenders of government unions argue that any attack on them is an attack on unionization in general. So Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to trim collective bargaining for state workers has elicited a host of apocalyptic declarations from politicians heavily supported by government unions, including President Obama, who called Walker's agenda, "an assault on unions."
(The president conveniently failed to note, as Josh Barro has pointed out on PublicSectorInc.com, that federal workers have fewer collective bargaining rights than what Walker is proposing in Wisconsin and that the President used his power over wages to impose a freeze on federal employees.)
But Walker's proposals to severely limit government union prerogatives are simply a recognition of something that political leaders and union officials across the ideological spectrum recognized for decades in America before the 1960s, which was that, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote, ‘the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service."
It's that larger understanding that motivates Walker. His critics are right to point out that he could balance this year's budget without going so far as rescinding collective bargaining. He could do so by simply employing the techniques, including gimmicks like refinancings and dubious actuarial formulas, that politicians have been using over the years to push off obligations further into the future and make state and local liabilities seem less bankrupt than they actually are. But Walker sees this as a decisive moment to end an unworkable system.
Walker's proposals are a recognition that five decades of public sector unionization have given us a system where, as a labor leader in New York presciently observed in the 1970s, unions have had ability to elect their own bosses, so that every taxpayer effort at reform and restraint over the years has dissolved eventually into new rounds of benefits and perks for government workers. It's a system without the competitive restraints on both management and labor that exist in the private sector.
George Meany himself once declared that "you can't collectively bargain with government,' and as government workers lobbied increasingly for unionization throughout the 1950s some private sector labor leaders resented the argument of their public sector counterparts that government workers were somehow oppressed and desperately in need of union protection. The period was one of reform, in which cities were already enacting civil service laws protecting government workers from being summarily fired, and employee associations rose to testify for public worker rights even, though these groups didn't have bargaining rights.
But the public sector union movement gained traction because of changing political currents. Unionization came to be associated increasingly during that period with the Democratic Party thanks to legislation like the 1935 Wagner Act, sponsored by New York Democratic Senator Robert F. Wagner, which gave private sector workers the right to bargain. As unions played an increasingly important role in the Democratic Party in the 1940s and 1950s, their political value became apparent to elected officials like Sen. Wagner's son, New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Mayor Wagner jolted the public sector union movement into life when in 1958 he gave city employees the right to collectively bargain, in the process making them valuable political allies in his reelection bid and igniting a series of similar moves by other politicians in cities and states across America.
What happened next confirmed the fears of many critics. The 1960s were a time of government strikes, including several dozen in September of 1966 by teachers that shut down school systems in some of our largest cities. When cities and states responded with laws outlawing strikes among government workers, unions developed a new strategy, concentrating their firepower in state capitals and city halls to elect leaders sympathetic to their cause. Over time they've become the biggest players in places like Sacramento, Albany and Madison, and such a permanent presence that every effort at reform is eventually undermined.
In the late 1970s, for instance, New York State enacted changes to its pension system for state and local workers after rich employee perks played a role in New York City's near bankruptcy. But over time public workers clawed back their benefits so that today, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during his election campaign, public pensions are unsustainable in the Empire State. In New York City alone pension contributions in one decade have gone from $1.5 billion annually to $7 billion, straining the city's budget.
California enacted pension reforms in 1991 which limited the impact of pensions on the state budget. But in 1999, Gov. Gray Davis and the state's Democratically controlled legislature wiped out those reforms, retroactively putting everyone who had joined the state's workforce in the 1990s into a new, richer system so that today California has unfunded pension liabilities ranging from $200 billion to $500 billion.
That's become a strategy of public worker unions. They fight reforms, but if they lose they wait 'till they can elect a new set of more sympathetic legislators and then reclaim their gains.
Public unions are bolstered by the fact that government never goes away, unlike private businesses where unions overreach. In the public sector, there are always taxpayers to turn to when a pension system or health care plan needs to be bailed out thanks to rich giveaways to unions.
Although Walker is being demonized as a union buster, in truth he's only asking for the same powers to manage his budget and workforce that President Obama already enjoys.
Steven Malanga is an editor for RealClearMarkets and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
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Public Unions Must Go
Townhall.com ^ | February 23, 2011 | Jonah Goldberg
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The protesting public school teachers with fake doctor's notes swarming the Capitol building in Madison, Wis., insist that Gov. Scott Walker is hell-bent on "union busting." Walker denies that his effort to reform public-sector unions in Wisconsin is anything more than an honest attempt at balancing the state's books.
I hope the protesters are right. Public unions have been a 50-year mistake.
A crucial distinction has been lost in the debate over Walker's proposals: Government unions are not the same thing as private-sector unions.
Traditional, private-sector unions were born out of an often-bloody adversarial relationship between labor and management. It's been said that during World War I, U.S. soldiers had better odds of surviving on the front lines than miners did in West Virginia coal mines. Mine disasters were frequent; hazardous conditions were the norm. In 1907, the Monongah mine explosion claimed the lives of 362 West Virginia miners. Day-to-day life often resembled serfdom, with management controlling vast swaths of the miners' lives. Before unionization and many New Deal-era reforms, Washington had little power to reform conditions by legislation.
Government unions have no such narrative on their side. Do you recall the Great DMV cave-in of 1959? How about the travails of second-grade teachers recounted in Upton Sinclair's famous schoolhouse sequel to "The Jungle"? No? Don't feel bad, because no such horror stories exist.
Government workers were making good salaries in 1962 when President Kennedy lifted, by executive order (so much for democracy), the federal ban on government unions. Civil service regulations and similar laws had guaranteed good working conditions for generations.
The argument for public unionization wasn't moral, economic or intellectual. It was rankly political.
Traditional organized labor, the backbone of the Democratic Party, was beginning to lose ground. As Daniel DiSalvo wrote in "The Trouble with Public Sector Unions," in the fall issue of National Affairs, JFK saw how in states such as New York and Wisconsin, where public unions were already in place, local liberal pols benefited politically and financially. He took the idea national.
The plan worked perfectly -- too perfectly. Public union membership skyrocketed, and government union support for the party of government skyrocketed with it. From 1989 to 2004, AFSCME -- the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- gave nearly $40 million to candidates in federal elections, with 98.5 percent going to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Why would local government unions give so much in federal elections? Because government workers have an inherent interest in boosting the amount of federal tax dollars their local governments get. Put simply, people in the government business support the party of government. Which is why, as the Manhattan Institute's Steven Malanga has been chronicling for years, public unions are the country's foremost advocates for increased taxes at all levels of government.
And this gets to the real insidiousness of government unions. Wisconsin labor officials fairly note that they've acceded to many of their governor's specific demands -- that workers contribute to their pensions and health-care costs, for example. But they don't want to lose the right to collective bargaining.
But that is exactly what they need to lose.
Private-sector unions fight with management over an equitable distribution of profits. Government unions negotiate with friendly politicians over taxpayer money, putting the public interest at odds with union interests, and, as we've seen in states such as California and Wisconsin, exploding the cost of government. California's pension costs soared 2,000 percent in a decade thanks to the unions.
The labor-politician negotiations can't be fair when the unions can put so much money into campaign spending. Victor Gotbaum, a leader in the New York City chapter of AFSCME, summed up the problem in 1975 when he boasted, "We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss."
This is why FDR believed that "the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," and why even George Meany, the first head of the AFL-CIO, held that it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government."
As it turns out, it's not impossible; it's just terribly unwise. It creates a dysfunctional system where for some, growing government becomes its own reward. You can find evidence of this dysfunction everywhere. The Cato Institute's Michael Tanner notes that federal education spending has risen by 188 percent in real terms since 1970, but we've seen no significant improvement in test scores.
The unions and the protesters in Wisconsin see Walker's reforms as a potential death knell for government unions. My response? If only.
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Providence plans to pink slip all teachers
Providence journal ^ | 2/23/11 | Linda Borg
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PROVIDENCE — The school district plans to send out dismissal notices to every one of its 1,926 teachers, an unprecedented move that has union leaders up in arms.
In a letter sent to all teachers Tuesday, Supt. Tom Brady wrote that the Providence School Board on Thursday will vote on a resolution to dismiss every teacher, effective the last day of school.
In an e-mail sent to all teachers and School Department staff, Brady said, “We are forced to take this precautionary action by the March 1 deadline given the dire budget outline for the 2011-2012 school year in which we are projecting a near $40 million deficit for the district,” Brady wrote. “Since the full extent of the potential cuts to the school budget have yet to be determined, issuing a dismissal letter to all teachers was necessary to give the mayor, the School Board and the district maximum flexibility to consider every cost savings option, including reductions in staff.” State law requires that teachers be notified about potential changes to their employment status by March 1.
“To be clear about what this means,” Brady wrote, “this action gives the School Board the right to dismiss teachers as necessary, but not all teachers will actually be dismissed at the end of the school year.”
“This is beyond insane,” Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith said Tuesday night. “Let’s create the most chaos and the highest level of anxiety in a district where teachers are already under unbelievable stress. Now I know how the United States State Department felt on Dec. 7 , 1941.” That was the day the Japanese government bombed Pearl Harbor.
(Excerpt) Read more at projo.com ...
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Teacher "Sick Out" in Michigan
Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 2/23/2011 | Tom Gantert
About 40 percent of the West Bloomfield High School teachers didn’t show up for work on Feb. 15 in the midst of bitter contract negotiations.
Superintendent JoAnn Andrees said that 41 high school teachers didn’t show up and that 36 of those teachers were not within a normal “pattern” of absences. Andrees said as many as a dozen teachers could be out on a typical day. The Michigan Department of Education said there are about 100 teachers at the high school as of 2009-10.
“Nothing has happened to this degree before,” Andrees said.
The missing classes were filled with substitutes and administrators, as well as other support staff from other buildings, Andrees said.
“I was so impressed with Bloomfield students on this day,” Andrees said. “Classes went on. … Kudos to my kids.”
Contract negotiations between the administration and unions began in October 2009. The teachers’ union contract expired Aug. 31, 2010.
West Bloomfield teachers do not do any premium sharing for health insurance and do not have a deductible in their plan, Andrees said.
“The district can no longer afford to pay for everything,” Andrees said. “The money is not there now. I can not continue that practice.”
(Excerpt) Read more at michigancapitolconfident ial.com ...
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they should look at who wrote these asinine plans - when the money wasn't there.
Stop letting superintendents just rubber stamp insane budgets then waltz out with a golden parachute.
we're starting to see there is a ceiling on this whole "the govt is incompetent, you can't blame them" mindset that has been around for decades.
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they should look at who wrote these asinine plans - when the money wasn't there.
Stop letting superintendents just rubber stamp insane budgets then waltz out with a golden parachute.
we're starting to see there is a ceiling on this whole "the govt is incompetent, you can't blame them" mindset that has been around for decades.
THATS THE FUCKING POINT!
The unions pressure the pols to go along with this crap and then fund their campaigns to get them elected. The taxpayer is not represented at these things and thats' why public unions need to go.
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THATS THE FUCKING POINT!
The unions pressure the pols to go along with this crap and then fund their campaigns to get them elected. The taxpayer is not represented at these things and thats' why public unions need to go.
IMO, the problem is the pols that rubber stamp the budget.
Would chris cristie fold to the pressures of some silly union? Shit, no.
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IMO, the problem is the pols that rubber stamp the budget.
Would chris cristie fold to the pressures of some silly union? Shit, no.
Yeah, and guess who wins in 90% of te elections - 33 the tea bagger running a campaign on a shoe string, or some poliician backed with millions from the unions he supports and rubber stamps the benes for?
The taxpyer gets FUCKED an hs little chance in this scheme.
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Editorial: Greece, Wisconsin ... is California next?
The Orange County Register ^ | 2-23-2011 | Mark Landsbaum
The near-anarchy that swept Greece last year hasn't come yet to the United States, but there are similarities. As in Greece, thousands of workers who rely on taxpayers for their livelihoods have poured into Wisconsin streets to protest. Similarly, they protest entirely reasonable and necessary economies proposed by their government to ward off insolvency. Likewise, they insist they have a right to live well, no matter how burdensome it becomes for those who pay the bill.
California's fiscal condition is just as dire for the same reason: a voracious appetite of government worker unions. An ultimate showdown is coming to determine whether government exists to serve the people or the people it employs. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
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Even FDR Understood: No Collective Bargaining for Public Servants
Pajamas Media ^ | February 23, 2011 | Peter Ferrara
There is no legitimate role for government unions.
Public servants — meaning government employees — don’t work for greedy miscreants exploiting them for personal profit. They work for democratically elected officials representing the will of the people. This is just one reason why there is no legitimate role for government unions, and there should be no collective bargaining rights for public servants.
Since public servants work for the people, their wages, benefits, and working conditions are set in accordance with the will of the people, as determined by the democratic process. This is why it is not legitimate to ask the people to compromise with public servants in collective bargaining. And this is why the pay, benefits, and working conditions for federal workers are set by acts of Congress, not through collective bargaining.
If public servants do not like the pay, benefits, and working conditions offered to them by the people as determined through the democratic process, nothing requires them to be public servants. This is why public servants are not slaves without collective bargaining, as soon-to-be-unemployed collective bargaining agents have suggested.
Since public servants work for the people, any strike by them would be a strike against the people. The government cannot allow the essential public services it provides to be shut down while it negotiates the pay, benefits, and working conditions for public servants through collective bargaining.
The right of collective bargaining for private sector workers is not at issue in Wisconsin, though the government unions, the Democrats, and President Obama want to confuse the public on precisely that question. Under current law, there are plenty of market and legal checks on private sector unions to keep them from abusing the public. The ultimate limit if they push too far is that their company will be driven out of business. Though that does happen sometimes, it only happens when management fails to do its job in resisting excessive union demands. Otherwise, within current market and legal checks, private sector unions actually perform a helpful market function in ensuring that employers keep up with market wages and working conditions as expeditiously as possible.
Not so for government unions, as governments cannot be driven out of business. They gain their revenue forcibly through taxes. As a result, there is no market limit to how much such unions can milk the public.
Moreover, government unions themselves can choose who negotiates with them on behalf of the people, through their votes and political support. In return for lavish pay and benefits far exceeding private compensation, the unions provide a kickback in campaign contributions and muscle to their political benefactors, financed by the taxpayers. This inherent conflict of interest involved in government unions leads to oppressive political corruption, where there is no political limit as well as no market limit to the plunder of the public by government unions.
What is at stake in Wisconsin is whether public servants work for the American people, or whether the American people work for a “public servant” aristocracy enjoying far greater pay and benefits than the taxpayers who are forced to subsidize them through the above-described political corruption.
These are the reasons why even an ultimate liberal like Franklin Delano Roosevelt agreed with me that there should be no collective bargaining for public servants. As quoted by Michael Walsh in yesterday’s New York Post, Roosevelt said:
All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public-personnel management. The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people.
What we are witnessing in Wisconsin today is the total breakdown of democracy, and the collapse of the rule of law. The Democrat Party in the state has refused to abide by the results of the election last November, and so has shut down the state legislature. The government unions are breaking the law by going out on strike. The anti-democracy protestors in Madison are breaking the law by continuing to occupy the state capitol. Doctors are breaking the law by writing fraudulent “sick notes.” The remaining Democrat state senators after last fall’s election have fled the state to hide from the law.
The only people expected to obey the law in Wisconsin now are the taxpayers.
Governor Walker and the Republicans are trying to pass a moderate bill to the left of FDR that still maintains some collective bargaining rights for government workers. Moreover, their bill would greatly benefit state and local workers by terminating government collection and payment of their union dues. This gives power to each worker to voluntarily decide if they want to pay those dues. That is like a tax cut of as much as $1,000 a year for state and local government workers. That policy needs to be adopted in every state, as taxpayer money going to government union dues is the root of political corruption in America.
Moreover, it is Governor Walker and the Republicans in Wisconsin who are protecting the interests of working people in the state, as it is these working people who must pay the taxes for the lavish pay and benefits of public sector aristocrats, and suffer their own lost jobs and wages resulting from high taxes.
Peter Ferrara is Director of Policy for the Carleson Institute for Public Policy, a Senior Fellow for the Heartland Institute, and Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Institute for Policy Innovation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush.
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Showdown brewing over CA state employee pensions
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 2/23/11 | Joe Garofoli,Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writers
A raucous, Wisconsin-style labor showdown is unlikely to unfold in California given its Democratic-controlled Legislature and union-friendly Gov. Jerry Brown.
But a different type of showdown is simmering in California as business and taxpayer groups and Republicans are ratcheting up the pressure on Brown to ask for more concessions from public employee unions to help fill the state's $25.4 billion budget deficit.
While union supporters gathered in Sacramento and Oakland on Tuesday night for vigils to show solidarity with their brethren in Wisconsin, the buzz among the 200 business leaders at the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce earlier in the day was how "in a budget crisis, everything should be on the table," said James Beckwith, president and CEO of Sacramento's Five Star Bank.
"It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room," Beckwith said. "You can't have real budget reform without pension reform."
That "isn't just a state problem, it's far worse in cities," said Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a nonprofit pension reform group. While several sources said Brown administration officials have been quietly meeting with union officials about possible concessions, Brown has yet to offer a proposal.
"We need the leader of California to stand up and lead on this issue," Fritz said. "And if he doesn't, we'll go around him, just like people did on Proposition 13 (in 1978 during Brown's first stint as governor). And I don't think he wants that."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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February 23, 2011 http://detnews.com/article/20110223/METRO01/102230400
Allen Park official says layoffs needed to plug $600K deficit
SANTIAGO ESPARZA
The Detroit News
Allen Park— The city's finance director said today that Allen Park must lay off 25 to 30 employees by June to avoid a $600,000 deficit for the current fiscal year.
Tim McCurley said in an interview that the city sent layoff notices to everyone in the fire department to comply with a clause in the firefighters' union contract requiring a 30-day notice. He said some or all of the firefighters could lose their jobs, and that the police department faces layoffs too.
"It's a major disruption to our police and fire service than what our residents are used to," he said.
According to McCurley, city officials are discussing several options on how to provide fire protection but have not settled on a plan. He referred further questions in that area to City Administrator Eric C. Waidelich, who did not return phone calls this afternoon.
"It's not easy to lay people off," McCurley said. "No one wants to do that. It's never easy, but we are trying to work through it."
The finance director said the layoffs would only keep the city's books balanced for this year and have nothing to do with any funding cuts in Gov. Rick Snyder's proposed budget for fiscal 2012.
According to McCurley, the city faces a fiscal crunch because revenue in several areas has fallen short of projections. Collections from traffic tickets are $819,000 below what was budgeted, and ambulance billing collections are $200,000 under budget, he said.
McCurley said the city also had to refund $80,000 under order of the Michigan Tax Tribunal.
In other areas, spending has exceeded projections, including $130,000 in parks and recreation. McCurley said the city failed to budget for $150,000 for unused sick and vacation time for employees who have retired.
Overtime in the fire department is $150,000 over budget, even after firefighters agreed to limit overtime pay as part of concessions negotiated last year, McCurley said.
City Council members approved laying off the 25-person fire department Tuesday night.
Fire Chief Doug LaFond said he would be laid off as well.
"That is obviously not what we want," LaFond told The Detroit News this morning. "We want to continue to serve the residents."
Allen Park, like many other communities across the state, is dealing with decreasing property values and falling tax collections. Moreover, the city gave $1.2 million to a movie studio, Unity Studios, that later bolted for Detroit.
But LaFond questioned the need to eliminate his entire force to make up for shrinking revenue.
"The bottom line is there aren't any other cities in the state of Michigan that are eliminating fire departments because of it," LaFond said.
The fire chief said he did not believe the entire police department was being threatened with layoff, but said the police force is about double the size of his department and could see significant cuts.
Police Chief Dean Tamsen said this afternoon he hadn't received word of layoffs in his department, which has 45 officers. However, he said he "can't picture the city laying off firefighters and not police officers. That is wishful thinking."
The chief said he has met with his command staff to map out ways to provide police service if there are cuts.
Tamsen said he has watched as communities across Metro Detroit have made painful cuts to keep up with declining tax bases, shrinking state revenue sharing allotments and the auto industry downsizing.
"I have been doing this job for almost 30 years," Tamsen said. "One of the reasons I came in was job security. That is now gone. I would have never dreamed it would get to this."
Tamsen said many in the community blame the cuts on the failure of the studio deal, but he believes the city's money issues go beyond the money lent to the studio.
"We've never faced a situation like this," the police chief said. "It is horrible."
LaFond said the firefighters' union last fall gave $800,000 in concessions that included the overtime limits and eliminating pay raises for promotions.
"I guess that wasn't enough," he said.
The firefighters union filed a grievance against the city, alleging that a position hasn't been filled as required under the contract, which includes the concessions negotiated last year and expires in March. Union president Jeff O'Riley said his local is willing to consider more concessions, but not before the city fills the position.
"You don't do this to families," he said. "They show no class or respect for the people who have given up so much for the city."
LaFond said his department's ambulance service generates $600,000 annually. He said collections are down, but times are tough and his department shouldn't lose firefighters because of it.
"They have singled us out," he said. "Other departments were able to make cuts through attrition and buyouts."
News of the cuts spread quickly through the community.
Resident Rose Reyes said she is nervous about the layoffs because the city hasn't released details about how public safety would be handled. Reyes, 33, who has lived in the city for six years, said the moves seem like bargaining tactics, which she said isn't fair to the firefighters, officers or residents.
"They are trying to bust the unions all around the United States," Reyes said. "I think that is pretty crummy of them if that is what they are doing. They are taking away our sense of security."
Allen Park Mayor Gary Burtka didn't return calls or e-mails by late this afternoon.
sesparza@detnews.com
(313) 222-2320
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Illinois seeks to borrow $3.7 billion to shore up pension shortfall
Washington Post ^ | 2/23/2011 | Peter Whoriskey
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Having fallen behind in funding its state pensions, Illinois is seeking to raise $3.7 billion through a bond issue this week, as the debate over government budget shortfalls roils state capitols.
The Illinois bond sale is viewed as a sign of how investors see the fiscal troubles in some overburdened states, where budget controversies have led to unrest and protests in places such as Wisconsin. If investors shy away from the bonds, other states, too, may have to pay higher rates when borrowing, making it harder for them to raise money.
The bond sale comes as several states are suffering fiscal shortfalls precipitated by the economic crisis. Moves by governors and Republican legislators to cut spending have drawn protesters to state capitals in Wisconsin and Indiana - where Democratic lawmakers have staged walkouts - and Ohio. In New Jersey on Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie (R) unveiled a budget plan that would give property-tax credits to homeowners if government workers pay more than triple what they do now for health insurance. Christie is also urging legislators to enact his proposal to reduce state employee pension benefits.
Pensions for government workers are one of the prime targets in the budget debates, at least in part because most private-sector workers no longer receive them, and as the record in Illinois shows, because those obligations can grow quickly.
Illinois' pension system is one of the most poorly funded in the nation, with less than 40 percent of its $139 billion in liabilities funded, according to state figures.
Pension costs account for nearly 13 percent of the state's general fund budget. Illinois' combined pension and debt burden translates to $6,692 per person, the fifth-highest in the country, according to a Moody's report.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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San Jose Officials Warn of Massive Police and Fire Layoffs
Mercury News.com ^ | Feb. 17, 2011 | Sean Webby
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Sketching out a worst-case scenario of San Jose's budget meltdown, city officials warned this week that they could lay off as many as 349 police officers and 145 firefighters, slashing close to a quarter of the city's public safety employees.
The city is also looking at millions of dollars in other cuts, including shutting off neighborhood
streetlights for much of the night and eliminating some gang-prevention programs.
There has never been a major layoff of police officers in the city's modern history. But last year San Jose laid off 49 firefighters, and this is the second year in a row the Police Department has faced layoffs.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
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I would sooooooo like to see CA fail, except that I think the leftists will do their damnest to take everyone else down with them.
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Illinois seeks to borrow $3.7 billion to shore up pension shortfall
Washington Post ^ | 2/23/2011 | Peter Whoriskey
________________________ ____________________-
Having fallen behind in funding its state pensions, Illinois is seeking to raise $3.7 billion through a bond issue this week, as the debate over government budget shortfalls roils state capitols.
The Illinois bond sale is viewed as a sign of how investors see the fiscal troubles in some overburdened states, where budget controversies have led to unrest and protests in places such as Wisconsin. If investors shy away from the bonds, other states, too, may have to pay higher rates when borrowing, making it harder for them to raise money.
The bond sale comes as several states are suffering fiscal shortfalls precipitated by the economic crisis. Moves by governors and Republican legislators to cut spending have drawn protesters to state capitals in Wisconsin and Indiana - where Democratic lawmakers have staged walkouts - and Ohio. In New Jersey on Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie (R) unveiled a budget plan that would give property-tax credits to homeowners if government workers pay more than triple what they do now for health insurance. Christie is also urging legislators to enact his proposal to reduce state employee pension benefits.
Pensions for government workers are one of the prime targets in the budget debates, at least in part because most private-sector workers no longer receive them, and as the record in Illinois shows, because those obligations can grow quickly.
Illinois' pension system is one of the most poorly funded in the nation, with less than 40 percent of its $139 billion in liabilities funded, according to state figures.
Pension costs account for nearly 13 percent of the state's general fund budget. Illinois' combined pension and debt burden translates to $6,692 per person, the fifth-highest in the country, according to a Moody's report.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Glad that fuckhead Quinn won the election ::)
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The Pensioner's Dilemma : Is the right to a leisurely retirement practical or even desirable ?
American Thinker ^ | 02/24/2011 | Stephen Mauzy
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"What government touches, government ruins" stands as apodictic a law as any in nature. To say "touch" is to be magnanimous, because government rarely touches, it inserts -- an iron fist mostly. And where intromission occurs, distortion, inefficiency, moral hazard, expense, corruption, and a lot of pain follow.
The examples are so numerous -- in commerce, in finance, in education, in ecology, in welfare, and in the law -- they appear on a whim to anyone conversant in Austrian- or Chicago-school economics. Retirement requires a little more vetting. Sure, there is the obvious: Social Security, which even a few enablers of government-sponsored ruination will acknowledge, during brief lapses into lucidity, is at its core a multitrillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
Unfunded state pension liabilities are equally obvious: California is putatively $55 billion in the hole (unofficial estimates put the number at $500 billion), New Jersey posts a $53-billion account deficit, even small-fry Maine over-promised its public masters and finds itself $4 billion in the red. A 2010 Pew Center reports an official nationwide shortfall of $1 trillion, while Professors Joshua Rauh and Robert Novy-Marx estimate $3 trillion.
Before bloated pensions swamped the public sector, they flattened many in the private sector; none more notable than Bethlehem Steel, whose history spanned a century and a half of American commerce. By the 1950s and 1960, Bethlehem was sitting in high cotton, so high, in fact, that it doled out lavish retirement benefits like so much Halloween candy. By the 1990s, the high cotton had been picked away by foreign competition and what remained was crushed under the weight of unserviceable debt. In 2001, Bethlehem filed for bankruptcy. One year later, it transferred its pension fund and its obligations to the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which promptly scrapped Bethlehem's 30-years-and-out agreement with the union.
It should never have come to this. A hundred years ago, retirement plans were private-sector novelties, and played no role in attracting or retaining employees. That all changed when government got into the distortion business big time during World War II. The combination of wage and price controls on an evaporating labor pool made attracting employees difficult. Businesses discovered that offering retirement plans allowed them to circumvent these controls.
Over time, big business and big government embraced retirement-plan schemes, even though benefits-as-compensation is always bad business, because benefits are suboptimal compensation. Benefits force employers to rank workers' utility. With cash, employees are free to choice purchases that rank highest on their utility scale: retirement funding and disability insurance for those who value the future more than the present, Aruba vacations and BMWs for those who don't.
Defined-benefit plans demand more clairvoyance than is practical, so the best of times get extrapolated -- evinced by ridiculous compounding rates -- with no thought of subdued times, much less the worst of times. Defined-benefit plans are paternalistic and infantilize the workforce. Because of the promise to fund their retirement, employees are released of the adult responsibility of anticipating the future. Meanwhile, government -- by demanding social security contributions, insuring defined-benefit plans, and offering defined-benefit plans to its employees -- promotes the unrealistic expectation that everyone has the right to live as a rentier. The recent private-sector switch to defined-contribution has yet to shift the paradigm for government employees.
More insidious, defined benefit means defined mobility. Many workers exchange the prime years of their lives to work at jobs that are disagreeable in exchange for a thumb-twiddling retirement at an age that may or may not come. After all, not even government is so omnipotent to guarantee everyone reaches old age. Nor is government so omnipotent to guarantee the pension contract. Pensioners delude themselves into thinking they've earned their sinecure, so the contract is inviolable, but they are hardly in a position to impose their will.
The saga of Stefano di Poggio is both cautionary and revealing. In the early fourteenth-century, Castruccio Castracani rose to power in Lucca, Italy, thanks to political power of Stefano di Poggio and his family, who elevated Castracani to the dignity of prince. While Castracani reveled in his exulted position, the di Poggio and his family stewed in their irritation, believing they had been slighted by Castracani and deserved additional compensation and credit for their support. The family incited a rebellion against Castracani.
Stefano di Poggio, a peaceable old man, objected and compelled the rebels, by his authority, to lay down their arms. Di Poggio offered to negotiate with Castracani, on behalf of the family in order to obtain what di Poggio and the family believed they were due. Castracani listened patiently as Poggio eloquently recited all he and his family had done for Castracani. When di Poggio finished, Castracani invited di Poggio and his family back to the palace. When they returned, Castracani had them all imprisoned, including di Poggio, and then had them all executed.
Di Poggio's folly was to highlight what he had done for Castracani, not what he could do for him. Di Poggio was no longer valuable to Castracani. To the contrary, di Poggio was an obligation. Had di Poggio convinced Castracani of his value on future endeavors, di Poggio would have likely lived a longer life. Compensation is as much about tomorrow's work as it is yesterday's.
Today's pensioners are like Stefano di Poggio: they are liabilities because they offer no future value; liabilities are jettisoned first when times turn tough. Future Social Security pensioners will learn this lesson in time; benefits will continue to shrink and age requirements will continue to rise. Government retirees will experience a retirement more stressful than their employment. (Advice to government employees about those $200,000-a-year private-sector jobs you claim to forgo for the higher calling of "public service:" you might reconsider those offers.) The money is only yours when it is in your account. IOUs don't count. A pension contract is a unilateral contract.
Those of a confused bent believe that pensions are worthwhile because the old need to step aside for the young. The confused wax imbecilically on how economies are zero-sum contests: When China grows the United States must shrink; when a seventy-year old is employed, a twenty-five year old must go without. Because politics is a zero-sum contest, politicians are blinded to the reality that economic activity leads to more activity among all participants. There really is room for all.
The right to a leisurely retirement has been imprinted on at least five generations of Americans, which is why so few consider whether it is practical or even desirable to guarantee that everyone should meander through the last twenty years of life. Degradation intensifies when mental activity abates, and mental activity abates when there is nothing to strive toward and there are no problems to solve. Work for compensation is desirable because work for compensation is an expression of value creation, and value creation instills a sense of self worth. Work keeps the mind and body alive.
Work or play are personal choices; neither choice should be subsidized or deterred, nor should the choice be relegated to a disinterested third party. Whenever the individual abrogates responsible, he surrenders his independence to another people's intentions, and another people's intentions are always driven by what is best for the other person.
Stephen Mauzy is a financial writer, analyst, and principal of S.P. Mauzy & Associates.
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All 2,000 Providence teachers told they could be fired
By Liz Goodwin liz Goodwin
Thu Feb 24, 11:18 am ET
www.yahoo.com
Providence, Rhode Island Mayor Angel Taveras is sending layoff warnings to all 1,926 of the city's teachers.
They won't all be dismissed, but state law requires the city to notify teachers by March 1 whether the district could lay them off before the start of the next school year. School officials say warning every teacher gives them the freedom to let go many of them later without having to single any of them out now.
Providence's school district is facing a $40 million budget shortfall next year.
"Are there going to be less teachers? Yes," Taveras told The Providence Journal. "Will there be less schools open next year? Yes. Do I know which teachers and which schools? No."
As you can imagine, the local teachers' union is not taking the news well.
"This is beyond insane," Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith told The Providence Journal's Linda Borg. "Let's create the most chaos and the highest level of anxiety in a district where teachers are already under unbelievable stress. Now I know how the United States State Department felt on Dec. 7, 1941."
Meanwhile, 106 teachers got pink slips in nearby Central Falls Public School District. Only 11 of those teachers will be fired due to poor performance, according to GoLocalProv.
Central Falls High School, one of the worst performing schools in the state, became a battleground of the education reform movement last year, when the superintendent threatened to fire its entire teaching staff after the union wouldn't agree to a longer school day, after-school tutoring, and a new evaluation system without much extra pay. Teachers argued that the area's poverty, not their lack of effort, was responsible for low test scores. Education Secretary Arne Duncan applauded the decision to force the teachers to do more work or lose their jobs.
Providence isn't the only town downsizing its school system. In an unprecedented move, the city of Detroit is planning on closing half of its 142 schools by 2014 in an effort to close its budget deficit.
Mass layoffs of public workers have become more common as city and state tax revenues have plunged during the recession. The mayor of Fall River, Mass. fired nearly 150 city employees in 2009, after two big companies in the town, Quaker Fabric and A.J. Wright, laid off almost 3,000 people in 2007. And the tiny city of Maywood, Calif. laid off every one of its employees last year and instead moved to an outsourcing contract system to save money.
(Central Falls High School: AP)
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Idaho Senate votes to curtail teacher's union
Reuters ^ | 02/24/2011 | Laura Zuckerman
(Reuters) - By a 20-15 vote, the Idaho Senate on Thursday approved legislation that curtails collective bargaining by public school teachers.
The measure restricts collective bargaining to salaries and benefits, removing from negotiations such provisions as class sizes, teacher workload and promotions.
Crafted by the state's schools chief and endorsed by the legislature's Republican leaders and Governor Butch Otter, the bill bans collective bargaining unless the teachers union could prove it represented more than 50 percent of educators in a school district.
The legislation now heads to the House, where passage is expected.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
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There are too many police officers and fire fighters, good to see them thin the herd.
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UFT spends millions on dinners, parties, parking, coffee as thousands of teachers face layoffs
BY Douglas Feiden
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, February 24th 2011, 4:00 AM
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Hagen for NewsUFT president Michael Mulgrew defended the lavish expenditures of his union, saying they were for the benefit of members. Take our PollUnion Dues
Is the teachers' union a bunch of crooks or dedicated lobbyists for teachers?
Crooks, they spent $1.4M on a party while teachers face the pink slip.
Dedicated lobbyists, without the union more teachers' jobs would be in jeopardy.
I don't know.
As nearly 5,000 city teachers face the ax, their union shells out millions of dollars on feasting, boozing and partying, the Daily News has learned.
Free-spending United Federation of Teachers brass last year spent nearly $1.4 million for the UFT's 50th anniversary gala at the Hilton - complete with a movie, a book and a paperweight.
Records show they:
Ponied up $514,000 to 16 separate caterers.
Dropped $278,417 on the annual Teachers Union Day ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria.
Bought $6,100 in gift baskets from a lower East Side candy store - and plowed $179,000 into training retreats at a Connecticut resort
boasting golf, scuba diving and aqua aerobics.
In one amazing feat of spending, they shelled out $114,870 for annual "coffee supplies" at their five offices across the city - paying the
Coffee Distributing Corp. on Long Island $324,000 over three years, records show.
And while most New Yorkers spend hours trying to find a parking space, the UFT rents 25 slots in Brooklyn's Renaissance Plaza Garage for members at an average annual cost of $75,000 over three years.
"I'm not going to apologize for spending money to service our members," said UFT President Michael Mulgrew.
"These people are heroes dedicated to making a difference in the lives of our children. They never get the respect they deserve. A cup of coffee, a bottle of water and a few parking spots is the least we can do for them."
The $284,078-a-year union boss got a little more than coffee when he took the reins in August 2009: The UFT feted him with a $6,400 "Welcome, Michael" party at a Brazilian steakhouse.
Mulgrew describes it as dinner for 130 union members, most of them volunteers, that came to barely $50 a head.
Three months later, the union bid farewell to his predecessor, Randi Weingarten, with a goodbye bash at the Tribeca Grill. Price tag: $8,339. "Mayor Bloomberg came and I tried to get him to pay," Mulgrew said. "Wouldn't do it."
Drawing from an annual honeypot of $126 million in members' dues, the union last year flung open the spigots even as it took fire for protecting dismal teachers and fighting reforms.
"These are wasteful, fantastic and outrageous expenditures, and they learned their profligate ways from the government spenders they negotiate with," said Sol Stern, a Manhattan Institute scholar and veteran education advocate.
Not Paris, but it is the Hilton
The spending orgy comes to light a week after after The News disclosed that cops bounced 24 rowdy UFT reps from an Albany eatery after they caused a ruckus over an $1,800 tab - and the modest size of a $40 gourmet quail.
Turns out over-the-top spending and a party-hearty culture is a union trademark.
Documented in the UFT's 2010 annual report to the U.S. Labor Department are details of the union's "Golden Jubilee," a gala bash last March that drew 2,500 members of the "UFT family."
It cost to $679,246 for the event at the Hilton New York.
To mark the milestone for posterity, a CUNY TV Foundation crew was paid $220,000 to film the documentary "UFT: Celebrating 50 Years," and all attendees got a DVD.
The UFT paid a printer $262,406 for a special book and anniversary journal. Paperweights emblazoned with the UFT logo cost $46,333. Balloons, $20,000 for entertainment and other expenses brought the tally to $1.4 million, filings show.
The UFT says it recouped $125,000 by charging members $50 a head, and donations from vendors and advertisers brought in an additional $275,000. Bottom line: That left the UFT out $1 million for the gala.
"We're very proud of the work we've done in 50 years as a union, and it deserved to be celebrated with dignity and respect," Mulgrew said.
dfeiden@nydailynews.com
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It's amazing the union members themselves aren't going after that kind of corruption.
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California Commission's plan rolls back pensions for current workers
Sacramento Bee - The State Worker ^ | 2-24-11 | Sacramento Bee
The bipartisan Little Hoover Commission recommended today that California state and local governments roll back pensions for existing employees, dump guaranteed retirement payouts and put more of the pension burden on workers.
Although any attempt to reduce pensions for current workers would prompt a legal battle, the commission says that public pension funds are in such dire financial straits that they'll never right themselves by reducing benefits for new hires. The recommendation would not affect current retirees. Click here to read the commission's 106-page report.
The most controversial Hoover proposal would allow state and local governments to freeze existing employee pension benefits and then lower them for future years worked.
Courts have ruled that pensions are legally protected property and that government has a contractual obligation to follow through with them.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.sacbee.com ...
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Outrage, anxiety after Providence mayor fires almost 2,000 teachers
CNN.com ^ | 2/24/11
CNN) -- The firing of every teacher in the Providence public school system has set off a wave of anxiety, anger and uncertainty in the Rhode Island city, with a union leader blasting the mayor's decision as anti-union maneuvering along the lines of what's happening in the Midwest.
Mayor Angel Tavares said in a online message Wednesday that he authorized the previous day's move to dismiss almost 2,000 teachers and staff to allow for greater flexibility once the budget process is complete. Tavares also said the final number of layoffs needed to balance a multimillion budget deficit will be determined later.
Still that explanation did little to assuage those teachers in the firing line, nor did a closed-door forum Thursday with Superintendent Tom Brady on the matter.
"The mood in the meeting today was extremely grim," one such teacher, Lori Iannucci, told CNN affiliate WPRI. "Teachers felt very negative, unappreciated. No questions were answered."
Teachers said that their union wasn't notified beforehand of the termination notices. At Thursday's meeting, they said they were given general assurances that the situation could be resolved within the next month.
But Steve Smith, president of the city's teacher's union, said he believed the decision "makes no sense at all to teachers or the community." He accused Tavares of "making a political decision to take control and silence workers" -- a group that, he said, has consistently and continually worked with city leaders to implement reforms.
"It's shocking that in the midst of working in a collaborative environment ... the mayor says you're fired," Smith told reporters. "This sounds very much like what's going on in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana, where lawmakers want to get rid of collective bargaining and remove the voice of workers."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
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LOL @ a mayor (in his 7th week on the job) firing teachers who have taught 28 years.
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LOL @ a 4-year term mayor firing teachers who have taught 28 years.
240 - yes or no - havent I been saying this stuff was coming now for at least a year and a half?
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240 - yes or no - havent I been saying this stuff was coming now for at least a year and a half?
Definitely man. nobody is saying you didn't get it wrong.
I just find it funny a georgetown lawyer from private practice can show up and fire 2000 teachers who have given 20 or 30 years to the job....
he's been in office since early january. After orientation and decorating the office, he's probably done a totl of 20 actual days of work. As MAYOR.
And he has the power to put 2000 people out of work. that's 2000 people who spend 4 or 6 years in college to be teachers. And he's worked 20 days and he's fired them all.
I dont know if it's the right or wrong move... it just blows my mind he has that kinda power. Governor, I could see having that power. I didn't know mayors could fire 2000 teachers, that's all.
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He probably say the P n L and fainted.
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Rubicon: A river in Wisconsin
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 25, 2011
The magnificent turmoil now gripping statehouses in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and soon others marks an epic political moment. The nation faces a fiscal crisis of historic proportions and, remarkably, our muddled, gridlocked, allegedly broken politics have yielded singular clarity.
At the federal level, President Obama's budget makes clear that Democrats are determined to do nothing about the debt crisis, while House Republicans have announced that beyond their proposed cuts in discretionary spending, their April budget will actually propose real entitlement reform. Simultaneously, in Wisconsin and other states, Republican governors are taking on unsustainable, fiscally ruinous pension and health-care obligations, while Democrats are full-throated in support of the public-employee unions crying, "Hell, no."
A choice, not an echo: Democrats desperately defending the status quo; Republicans charging the barricades.
Wisconsin is the epicenter. It began with economic issues. When Gov. Scott Walker proposed that state workers contribute more to their pension and health-care benefits, he started a revolution. Teachers called in sick. Schools closed. Demonstrators massed at the capitol. Democratic senators fled the state to paralyze the Legislature.
Unfortunately for them, that telegenic faux-Cairo scene drew national attention to the dispute - and to the sweetheart deals the public-sector unions had negotiated for themselves for years. They were contributing a fifth of a penny on a dollar of wages to their pensions and one-fourth what private-sector workers pay for health insurance.
The unions quickly understood that the more than 85 percent of Wisconsin not part of this privileged special-interest group would not take kindly to "public servants" resisting adjustments that still leave them paying less for benefits than private-sector workers. They immediately capitulated and claimed they were only protesting the other part of the bill, the part about collective-bargaining rights.
Indeed. Walker understands that a one-time giveback means little. The state's financial straits - a $3.6 billion budget shortfall over the next two years - did not come out of nowhere. They came largely from a half-century-long power imbalance between the unions and the politicians with whom they collectively bargain.
In the private sector, the capitalist knows that when he negotiates with the union, if he gives away the store, he loses his shirt. In the public sector, the politicians who approve any deal have none of their own money at stake. On the contrary, the more favorably they dispose of union demands, the more likely they are to be the beneficiary of union largess in the next election. It's the perfect cozy setup.
To redress these perverse incentives that benefit both negotiating parties at the expense of the taxpayer, Walker's bill would restrict future government-union negotiations to wages only. Excluded from negotiations would be benefits, the more easily hidden sweeteners that come due long after the politicians who negotiated them are gone. The bill would also require that unions be recertified every year and that dues be voluntary.
Recognizing this threat to union power, the Democratic Party is pouring money and fury into the fight. Fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers are unionized. The Democrats' strength lies in government workers, who now constitute a majority of union members and provide massive support to the party. For them, Wisconsin represents a dangerous contagion.
Hence the import of the current moment - its blinding clarity. Here stand the Democrats, avatars of reactionary liberalism, desperately trying to hang on to the gains of their glory years - from unsustainable federal entitlements for the elderly enacted when life expectancy was 62 to the massive promissory notes issued to government unions when state coffers were full and no one was looking.
Obama's Democrats have become the party of no. Real cuts to the federal budget? No. Entitlement reform? No. Tax reform? No. Breaking the corrupt and fiscally unsustainable symbiosis between public-sector unions and state governments? Hell, no.
We have heard everyone - from Obama's own debt commission to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - call the looming debt a mortal threat to the nation. We have watched Greece self-immolate. We can see the future. The only question has been: When will the country finally rouse itself?
Amazingly, the answer is: now. Led by famously progressive Wisconsin - Scott Walker at the state level and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan at the congressional level - a new generation of Republicans has looked at the debt and is crossing the Rubicon. Recklessly principled, they are putting the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/24/AR2011022406520.html
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Gov. Brown will push for a $25-billion cut unless voters OK tax extension
The Los Angeles Times ^ | February 25, 2011 | By Anthony York and Shane Goldmacher
Sacramento — Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday that he would hold out for a budget that cuts more than $25 billion from state services if voters and lawmakers do not approve more taxes.
Brown made his comments to a panel of lawmakers who are working on a spending plan — the first time in nearly 50 years that a sitting governor has testified before the Legislature.
"I want to make one thing clear," Brown said. "... If we don't get the tax extensions, I am not going to sign a budget [unless it is] an all-cuts budget."
Brown, a Democrat, has said he does not want to borrow to close the gap or employ the kinds of bookkeeping gimmicks used to balance the budget in recent years. He has alluded to "dire consequences" if his plan to extend billions in income, sales and vehicle taxes is not taken to voters and ratified this year.
But a spokeswoman for the Service Employees International Union called the proposal "fundamentally unfair to workers and unwarranted by the facts."
For the first time Thursday, Brown seemed ready to include discussion of pension changes as part of the budget negotiations. He sparred with Assemblywoman Diane Harkey (R-Dana Point), asking if she would support the tax package if it were coupled with a plan to curb pensions.
"If that's serious, let's do it," Brown said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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February 25, 2011 http://detnews.com/article/20110225/OPINION01/102250330
Editorial: Public retiree health costs must be confronted
Local governments have billions in unfunded retirement health liabilities
THE DETROIT NEWS
Many of Michigan's local governments have made retirement promises to their employees that they probably can't keep. A new study from the Citizens Research Council of Michigan finds that counties, municipalities and schools have built up huge retiree health care liabilities, most of which are unfunded. Dealing with these costs can no longer be avoided or postponed.
While Gov. Rick Snyder has laid out a plan on current state employee health coverage, he hasn't yet unveiled his accompanying proposal for retirement health care benefits, beyond starting to invest $200 million a year toward the unfunded liability for them. His plan is coming soon and should provide a guideline to local government and school leaders for handling these benefits as well.
Some already have done away with retirement health coverage for all new hires, but still are on the hook for current retirees and current workers who'll retire in the future. The Citizens Research Council study shows those local governments will need relief of some kind.
The nonpartisan organization sampled 50 of the state's 83 counties and found they have made $4 billion worth of retirement health care commitments but haven't set aside funds to cover $3 billion of this obligation.
As startling as that may seem, it's but a fraction of the liability for the entire state. There are at least 1,800 local units of government and 800 traditional K-12, intermediate and charter school districts in Michigan, as many as two-thirds of which may have retirement health care agreements with their workers.
The report notes that when local governmental units started handing out such benefits in the 1950s, they seemed like a good concession to make. The costs then were small compared to overall budgets of counties and municipalities.
Citing state data regarding membership in the state's Municipal Employees Retirement System used by 708 local governments, the Citizens Research Council said, however, that the number of retired workers drawing these health benefits nearly tripled between 1955 and 2008.
Further, health care spending has escalated at a rate that's 2.4 percentage points faster than growth of the economy since 1970, according to the report. A generation of Baby Boomers heading toward retirement will exacerbate the problem in the next few years.
Budgets of counties, townships and cities, meanwhile, are being slammed by falling property values — and tax revenues — as well as severe cuts in state revenue sharing. Lawmakers have tried to protect schools, but they, too, face a considerable decline in state aid under Snyder's 2012 budget proposal.
It's easy to see how this sets up an impending clash between what schools and local governments have promised and the scarce dollars they'll have available to meet those commitments. Snyder, wisely, has pledged to partner with unions to solve the problem, rather than go to war. That, too, is an example for labor leaders and local officials to follow.
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© Copyright 2011 The Detroit News. All rights reserved.
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latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-pensions-20110226,0,7405680.story
latimes.com
Editorial
Day of reckoning on pensions
The Little Hoover Commission paints a bleak picture of what's ahead for state and local governments in California.
February 26, 2011
The housing bubble and subsequent Wall Street collapse wreaked havoc on the nation's retirement savings, as many pension funds and 401(k) plans suffered losses of 30% or more. State and local governments are now facing huge unfunded pension liabilities, prompting policymakers to scramble for ways to close the gap without slashing payrolls and services. But a new report from the Little Hoover Commission in Sacramento makes a more troubling point: Many state and local government employees have been promised pensions that the public couldn't have afforded even had there been no crash.
The commission's analysis of the problem is hotly disputed by union leaders, who contend that the financial woes of pension funds have been overblown. The commission's recommendations are equally controversial: Among other things, it urges state lawmakers to roll back the future benefits that current public employees can accrue, raise the retirement age and require employees to cover more pension costs. Given that state courts have rejected previous attempts to alter the pensions already promised to current workers, the commission's recommendation amounts to a Hail Mary pass. Yet it's one worth throwing.
A bipartisan, independent agency that promotes efficiency in government, the Little Hoover Commission studied the public pension issue for 10 months before issuing its findings Thursday. Much of the 90-page report is devoted to making the case that, to use the commission's blunt words, "pension costs will crush government." Without a "miraculous" improvement in the funds' investments, the commission states, "few government entities — especially at the local level — will be able to absorb the blow without severe cuts to services."
The problem is partly demographic. The number of people retiring from government jobs is growing rapidly, and longer life expectancies mean that a growing number of retirees will collect benefits for more years than they worked. But the report argues that political factors have been at least as important in driving up costs, starting with the Legislature's move in 1999 to reduce the retirement age for public workers, base pensions on a higher percentage of a worker's salary and increase benefits retroactively. The increases authorized by Sacramento soon spread across the 85 public pension plans in California.
Compounding the problem, the state has increased its workforce almost 40% since the pension formula was changed and boosted the average state worker's wages by 50%. Local governments, meanwhile, raised their average salaries by 60%. Much of the growth came in the ranks of police and firefighters, who increased significantly in number and in pay.
There's nothing inherently wrong with generous pension plans. Pensions, after all, are just a form of compensation that's paid after retirement, not before. The problem, particularly for local governments, is that the plans are proving to be far costlier than officials anticipated or prepared for. By their own reckoning, the 10 largest public pension systems in California had a $240-billion shortfall in 2010.
When the funds don't have enough money to cover their long-term liabilities, state and local governments are compelled to increase their contributions. In Los Angeles, the report says, the city's retirement contributions are projected to double by 2015, taking up a third of the city's operating budget. It projects that governments throughout the state will have to raise their contributions by 40% to 80% over the next few years, then maintain that higher rate for three decades.
The more tax dollars governments have to devote to pensions, the more they'll have to take from other programs or from taxpayers. That means more layoffs or pay cuts for public employees, higher taxes, fewer services, or all of the above.
The situation won't be so dire if the plans earn more on their investments than expected. But with the plans typically counting on annual returns near 8%, or twice the "risk-free" level suggested by some analysts, it seems just as likely that they'll earn less than that, forcing local governments to contribute even more.
The Legislature and some local governments have sought to ameliorate the situation by reducing benefits for new hires and persuading current workers to contribute more to their pension funds. The commission's report, however, argues that these moves aren't sufficient. The savings from the lower pensions for new employees won't be realized for many years, and the increased contributions aren't nearly enough to close the funding gap.
The only real solution, the report contends, is to reduce the benefits that current employees are slated to earn in the coming years. That's hard to do. California courts have held that pensions for current employees can be increased without their approval, but not decreased unless they're given a comparable benefit in exchange. Nevertheless, the commission calls on the Legislature to give itself and local governments explicit authority to trim the benefits that current employees have not yet accrued, without touching the amounts they have already earned. It also calls for a hybrid retirement plan that combines a smaller pension with a 401(k) plan and Social Security benefits, as well as the elimination of a variety of loopholes used to inflate pensions.
The commission is right about the importance of reducing the liabilities posed by current employees. And though picking a fight with unions over unilateral reductions in pensions probably isn't the solution, the report should persuade both sides to do more at the negotiating table to prevent pension costs from swamping state and local budgets. As the commission notes, public employees in California enjoy some of the most generous pension plans in the country. Those plans won't do them much good, however, if their employer can't afford to keep them on the payroll.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
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NEA to Double Member Dues Contribution to Political War Chest
Hot Air ^ | Feb. 26, 2011 | Mike Antonucci
Amid substantial membership losses and a $14 million shortfall in its general operating budget, the National Education Association plans to double each active member’s annual contribution to the national union’s political and media funds.
Currently, $10 of each active member’s NEA dues is allocated to these special accounts. The more than $20 million collected each year is then disbursed to state affiliates and political issue campaigns – such as last year’s SQ 744 in Oklahoma. A portion of the money also pays for state and national media buys to support the union’s agenda.
But the most recent numbers show NEA lost more than 54,000 active K-12 members since this time last year. Coupled with less-than-expected increases in the average teacher salary – upon which NEA dues are based – the union will find itself with $14 million less revenue than it had planned. This includes about $500,000 less in the political and media funds.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
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The People Mover's Pricey Pensions
Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 02/27/2011 | Tom Gantert
Barbara Hansen made $114,815 in 2010 as general manager of Detroit Transportation Corporation. DTC exists to operate the Detroit People Mover, the municipal rail system that serves downtown Detroit.
Hansen also received a $14,696 pension contribution made by her employer last year. It is a benefit DTC employees get that far exceeds the private sector. The DTC contributes 12.8 percent of W-2 wages for employees’ pensions, more than double the payment made to a typical private sector employee with a retirement benefit.
“That’s not where you want to be,” said Rick Dreyfuss, a pension expert and adjunct scholar at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “That wouldn’t be sustainable in the long term.”
(Excerpt) Read more at michigancapitolconfident ial.com ...
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Skip to comments.
Showdown brewing over CA state employee pensions
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 2/27/11 | Joe Garofoli,Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writers
Pos
A raucous, Wisconsin-style labor showdown is unlikely to unfold in California given its Democratic-controlled Legislature and union-friendly Gov. Jerry Brown.
But a different type of showdown is simmering in California as business and taxpayer groups and Republicans are ratcheting up the pressure on Brown to ask for more concessions from public employee unions to help fill the state's $25.4 billion budget deficit.
While union supporters gathered in Sacramento and Oakland on Tuesday night for vigils to show solidarity with their brethren in Wisconsin, the buzz among the 200 business leaders at the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce earlier in the day was how "in a budget crisis, everything should be on the table," said James Beckwith, president and CEO of Sacramento's Five Star Bank.
"It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room," Beckwith said. "You can't have real budget reform without pension reform."
That "isn't just a state problem, it's far worse in cities," said Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a nonprofit pension reform group. While several sources said Brown administration officials have been quietly meeting with union officials about possible concessions, Brown has yet to offer a proposal.
"We need the leader of California to stand up and lead on this issue," Fritz said. "And if he doesn't, we'll go around him, just like people did on Proposition 13 (in 1978 during Brown's first stint as governor). And I don't think he wants that."
On Tuesday, Assemblyman Allan Mansoor, R-Costa Mesa (Orange County), introduced a bill that would strip public employees of their ability to collectively bargain for retirement benefits.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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N.J. Public Workers are in a Hurry to Retire
N.J.com ^ | 2/28/11 | Jarrett Renshaw
More than 20,000 police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public employees put in their retirement papers last year as momentum was building for sweeping health and pension reform in Trenton, state figures show.
That is a 60 percent jump from 2009 retirements and the highest in at least a decade, according to the Division of Pension and Benefits.
Teachers whose contracts were criticized all year long by Gov. Chris Christie headed for the exits at the quickest pace, nearly doubling the number who retired in 2009.
Under nearly all the reform proposals circulating in Trenton, public employees would pay more for pension and health benefits, but would ESCAPE the additional costs if they retire before the reforms were enacted.
"There has been a direct assault on the benefits that public employees have earned and fought for over the last 40 years," said Dominick Marino, president of the state chapter of the International Association of Firefighters.
"People were attracted to these jobs because of the certainty, now there is no certainty, and people are retiring."
Mark Ruskoski, 60, taught physical education for 26 years in the Vineland School District and hoped to continue. He said the talk in Trenton prompted him to put in his retirement papers last year and collect his $35,085 annual pension.
Under Christie’s plan, a teacher who makes a $66,000 salary would pay about $5,200 a year for health insurance.
In general, public employees with 25 years of service can retire and receive medical benefits at no cost, but that would change under both Sweeney’s and Christie’s plan.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
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February 28, 2011
Pension Funds Strained, States Look at 401(k) Plans
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
www.nytimes.com
Lawmakers and governors in many states, faced with huge shortfalls in employee pension funds, are turning to a strategy that a lot of private companies adopted years ago: moving workers away from guaranteed pension plans and toward 401(k)-type retirement savings plans.
The efforts come as the governors of Wisconsin and Ohio, citing dire budget problems, are engaged in bitter showdowns with public-employee unions over wages, pensions and collective bargaining rights.
The new plans allow states to set a firm, upfront limit on the amount they will contribute and leave it up to the employee and the financial markets to make the money grow. In a traditional pension system, the employer promises a certain benefit, then must find a way to pay for it.
Like private employers, which in droves have terminated traditional pension plans, many government officials like the idea of shifting much of a pension plan’s risk to the worker. And some workers prefer a 401(k)-type system because it gives them more control over their retirement assets, including the ability to take the money with them when they change jobs.
Utah lawmakers voted last year to make a partial changeover to a 401(k)-type plan, following in the footsteps of Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and several other states, which offer at least some version of it.
In February, Kentucky’s Senate approved a full switch to a 401(k)-type plan, although the bill faces uncertain prospects in the House. In Oklahoma and Kansas, legislative committees will be studying the issue intensively over the next few weeks. Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas has made it clear he hopes the state Senate will embrace some form of a 401(k)-type plan. Texas is also considering a switch.
Utah decided to adopt a 401(k)-type plan after the stock market plunge in 2008 caused the shortfall in the state’s pension plan to balloon to $6.5 billion.
“We said, ‘O.K., how do we prevent this from happening again?’ ” said Dan Liljenquist, a state senator who pushed for the changes. “How do we eliminate the bankruptcy risk for our pension fund?”
Under the new plan, Mr. Liljenquist said, the state’s retirement contributions for new workers will be roughly half that for current employees, potentially saving $5 million a year for every 1,000 new workers hired.
Still, these plans — similar to 401(k)’s, but named after other sections of the tax code — are not being embraced in states with the biggest pension problems like Illinois, California and New Jersey, which have shortfalls so immense that a switch would not solve their problem.
Unlike private companies, most states are constitutionally or contractually barred from changing the pension plans of current employees without their consent. So the new rules are generally voluntary or apply only to new employees.
In fact, switching workers to 401(k)-type plans can make the underfunding problem even worse. As contributions move to individual investment accounts, less money goes into the traditional plan to help finance pensions promised to other workers.
“There’s no free lunch here,” said Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. “People say, ‘We can reduce our costs here if we have a defined-contribution system.’ Well, if you do this, you still haven’t done anything about your unfunded liabilities.”
California’s problems are so acute that just last week a government-appointed commission of experts urged the state to consider at least a partial switch to 401(k) plans; six years ago, an effort by Arnold Schwarzenegger, then governor, to move new employees into such plans was blocked by local governments and public-employee unions.
The long-term benefits of restructuring pension systems are alluring to many public officials. The new governors of Florida and Kansas, Rick Scott and Mr. Brownback, and lawmakers in North Dakota, Oklahoma, Virginia and several other states are seriously discussing adopting 401(k)-type plans for state employees.
“Every state has to solve this problem or else there’s going to be a very dire consequence,” said Mike Mazzei, a Republican state senator in Oklahoma who heads the Senate select committee on pensions and is backing an overhaul of a system that faces $16 billion in unfunded obligations.
The push to switch to 401(k)-type plans comes overwhelmingly from Republicans, who see them as more individualistic and free market. Democrats generally oppose the change, partly because their union allies are eager to keep traditional plans.
Utah chose to take a hybrid approach to limit taxpayers’ liability and keep money flowing into the old plan.
Starting July 1, new state workers will be able to choose either a traditional pension plan or a 401(k)-type plan, with the state contributing 10 percent of an employee’s salary (12 percent for uniformed workers) to whichever plan a worker chooses. But there is an important twist: Utah will never pay more than 10 percent of a new employee’s salary to the pension plan. If the plan becomes too underfunded, employees who have joined the plan will have to pay a percentage of their paycheck to help eliminate the shortfall.
The Utah plan is meant to give workers a choice, said Mr. Liljenquist, who became such an expert on pension overhauls during Utah’s debate that lawmakers in other states have sought him out for advice.
“Some state workers who will just work for the state a few years — take, say, bank examiners — I imagine 75 percent of them will choose defined-contribution plans,” he said, referring to 401(k)-type plans. “And I think 90 percent of cops and firefighters and 75 percent of teachers will want a defined-benefit plan because they look at their government jobs as a single career.”
Casey Parry, 32, a research consultant in the Utah human resources department, would prefer the 401(k) option. “It’s hard when you’re starting a job to make a decision whether to stay with an employer for 30 years,” he said. “I prefer the security of having a defined-contribution plan that I know I can take with me. It’s under my control. I can plan for it.”
But Debra McBride, a Medicaid policy analyst who has worked for the state for 35 years, said she was happy with a traditional pension plan. “I imagine that anyone who went through the recession with a 401(k) and saw the stock market nosedive wished they had a pension plan instead of a 401(k),” she said.
Lawmakers considering changes are trying to balance competing needs. Georgia officials — fearing that many employees would retire with paltry amounts in their plans — stopped short of embracing a full-fledged 401(k) plan, setting up a hybrid plan different from Utah’s. New employees join both a traditional pension plan, with a far less generous formula than the old formula, and a 401(k). The state contributes an automatic 1 percent of salary into the 401(k)-type plan and matches half of the next 4 percent that employees contribute.
“Georgia realized that having people solely in a 401(k), they have sole control and they might lose a lot of money in it,” said Pamela L. Pharris, executive director of the Employees’ Retirement System of Georgia, adding that such people eventually “might become dependent on the state.”
The National Association of State Retirement Administrators has voiced support for traditional pension plans.
“Defined-contribution plans are a very unreliable vehicle for promoting retirement security,” said Keith Brainard, the association’s research director. “Many workers don’t know how to invest, many don’t contribute enough to their 401(k)s, and many cash out much of what’s in their 401(k) long before they retire, leaving them too little to live on when they retire.”
Mr. Brainard said it would be wiser for states to ask employees to contribute more toward underfunded plans than to switch to 401(k)-type plans. And in fact, some states have shored up their pension plans by requiring employees to pitch in more of their salary.
Despite the cautions, Bette Grande, a Republican state representative in North Dakota, vowed to continue pushing for 401(k)-type plans. Ms. Grande sponsored a bill to switch new employees entirely to such plans, but it was blocked by the House on Feb. 18. “I think it’s condescending to say that workers aren’t wise enough to manage their own investments,” said Ms. Grande, who said she would push to revive the bill. “I refuse to think I’m going to have a bunch of teachers on welfare.”
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BILL GATES: States' Ridiculous Budget And Pension Accounting "Would Make Enron Blush"
John Ellis | Mar. 3, 2011, 5:19 PM | 4,530 | 38
Image: Wikipedia Commons User Kjetil Ree
See Also:
Bill Gates Addresses The 'Completely Unsustainable' Crisis In Public PensionsCalifornia Lawmakers Shoot Messenger RepeatedlyBADGER STATE SHOWDOWN: Wisconsin Governor Unveils Full Budget Proposal
Microsoft founder Bill Gates said today that state governments needed to adopt "clear and honest" accounting of their budgets, as their true finances threaten America's public-education system.
Speaking at the annual TED conference in Long Beach, California, Mr. Gates said that state budgets should follow more-transparent accounting principles. The Wall Street Journal reports:
"It's riddled with gimmicks," Mr. Gates said of the "tricks" states use to balance their budgets. Citing moves such as selling state assets and deferring payments, he said some methods are "so blatant and extreme," that "Enron would blush," referring to the energy company that collapsed a decade ago amid an accounting scandal.
The biggest concerns nationwide, he said, are the growing cost of state-funded health-care programs and public workers' health-care coverage, as well as the way states account for their pension funding. Those obligations threaten the ability to invest in education, Mr. Gates said.
"It is an increasingly difficult picture even assuming the economy does quite well," Mr. Gates said of the costs.
You can read the full report here.
Tags: Big Picture, Bill Gates, TED, State Governments, State And Muni, Pension Crisis, Municipal Debt, Politics, State & Muni, Pensions, Governance, Debt, Muni Bonds, Deficit | Get Alerts for these topics »
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Economists: State, local pension funds understate shortfall by $1.5 trillion or more
Washington Post ^ | 3/3/2011 | Peter Whoriskey
The pension funds for state and local workers in the United States are understating the amount they will owe workers by $1.5 trillion or more, according to some economists who have studied the issue, meaning that the benefits are much costlier than many governments and taxpayers thought.
Doubts about government pension accounting have been voiced by analysts for years, but with shortfalls in state and local pension plans exacerbated by the recession, the push to refigure pension fund shortfalls has gained political momentum.
The trillion-dollar gap arises from the government method of accounting, which several experts say significantly underestimates the cost of future pension payments.
[Snip]
The cost of pension plans for the approximately 17 million state and local government workers have come under heightened scrutiny in recent weeks, particularly in Wisconsin, New Jersey and other states where governors are struggling to balance budgets and reduce costs.
In Wisconsin, for example, Gov. Scott Walker (R) wants state workers to pay 5.8 percent of their wages to fund the pension.
Even under current accounting methods, state and local governments are facing massive pension shortfalls - at least $344 billion, according to calculations by the Center for Retirement Research and other groups.
But when the accounting is revised to value future payments more accurately, in the critics' view, the amount that pensions are underfunded grows to more than $1.9 trillion, according to Munnell's calculations for 126 large plans.
[Snip]
By comparison, the entire federal debt held by the public is $9.3 trillion.
"By virtually any measure, that's an enormous number," said Jeffrey R. Brown, a finance professor at the University of Illinois who has studied the issue. "When you're short that much money, at some point you have to pay the piper."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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Connecticut Town Ordered to Pay for Union Workers’ Coffee
Fox News ^ | 03/04/2011 | Fox News
A Connecticut town must provide their union workers free coffee and milk, according to a ruling from the State Board of Labor Relations.
The board also ordered town leaders to reinstate “Dress Down Fridays” for the union clerical and custodial workers.
The dispute involved the town of Orange and the local chapter of the United Public Service Employees Union.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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These unions would have some goodwill from the public if they would give back when the economy is bad....they just want to continually take with no givebacks...However..I'm not totally in favor of merit pay either because wee all know that "merit" often means someone knows you so they give you something you often don't deserve
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Washington(State)View: Public employee pensions are a ticking time bomb
The Columbian ^ | Tuesday, June 1, 2010 | By Don Brunell
Most people know that our $13 trillion national debt is endangering America’s credit rating and pushing the United States closer to bankruptcy. But hidden beneath the surface is another ticking time bomb that threatens economic collapse : unfunded public employee pensions.
...Historically, increasing public employee pensions has been a practical way to resolve a budget crisis. .... voting to approve richer pensions is easy because they know they’ll be long gone before the bill comes due.
...According to an analysis by the Pew Center on the States, state and local governments now owe at least $1 trillion to public employee pension accounts. To pay that debt, taxpayers would have to spend $1 million a day for the next 2,740 years. That works out to about $8,800 for each American household, on top of their estimated $120,000 share of our national debt.
..Simply put, state lawmakers didn’t make the required payments to their pension plans. According to the Washington Post, “They failed to squirrel away enough money to pay retiree health benefits and, perhaps most egregious, they increased their benefits without figuring out how to pay for them.”
...Pew’s $1 trillion figure — tallied through the end of the 2008 fiscal year — is conservative given that it doesn’t capture the stock market losses incurred in the second half of that year. To make matters worse, the study did not include many city, county and municipal pension plans, which are thought to have similar funding shortfalls.
What about Washington state? According to Pew, state lawmakers have failed to make the total required pension contributions since 2001. In fact, between 1999 and 2008, Washington’s pension liabilities outpaced assets almost 2 to 1. And those figures don’t account for state investment losses due to the recession.
(Excerpt) Read more at columbian.com ...
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Illinois Senate president wants to look at taxing retirement income
Chicago Tribune ^ | 03/07/11 | Monique Garcia and Rick Pearson
Illinois Senate President John Cullerton today suggested the state should start taxing the retirement income of senior citizens who are able to afford it. The state does not currently tax pensions or retirement funds such as 401(k) plans, but Cullerton told a City Club of Chicago luncheon that should take place as part of an overall look at what he said was Illinois' "outdated" tax system.
"It would just be a matter of fairness," said Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsblogs.chicagotribune .com ...
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Mass. mayors, unions debate health care proposals
Published: Tuesday, 8 Mar 2011 | 3:23 PM ET Text Size
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41973932
BOSTON - Massachusetts mayors are warning state lawmakers that without dramatic changes to the way municipalities provide health care to their public workers, cities and towns will face dire fiscal straits for the foreseeable future, threatening core local services from police to road repairs.
The mayors issued their warning during a Statehouse hearing on a series of proposals on ways to overhaul insurance coverage for municipal employees.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said the state's largest city is already grappling with the effects of skyrocketing health care costs. He said in the past decade those costs have soared by 142 percent while all other spending grew by 27 percent.
For every dollar the city spends on health insurance, Menino said, it spends just a nickel on snow removal and community centers.
"The status quo is a stampede of increasing costs that will break cities and towns," he said. "If we do nothing ... Boston will continue to spend more on health care than on the entire police department."
Menino wasn't alone.
New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang said his city is also looking at ongoing cuts to services unless mayors and town administrators are given more control over health care plans for their workers.
Lang said a proposal unveiled on Monday by a coalition of unions representing public workers was a start, but didn't "scratch the surface" of the kind of overhaul needed to get spending under control.
Union officials said their plan would save an estimated $120 million in the first year, while preserving collective bargaining rights. The plan also calls for half of the savings in the first year to go back to workers to pay for health care costs.
Lang, who supports a proposal by the Massachusetts Municipal Association that would strengthen the hands of city and town leaders over health care plans for workers, said the goal should be to develop a way to provide quality health care plans that are also affordable.
"Otherwise, in order to pay for the health care plans you are going to be laying off the very employees that the unions represent," Lang said. "You'll have fewer and fewer people with these superlative plans and other people will be out there without jobs and then the services won't get done. Everyone's got to be realistic."
Menino and Lang were among a group of mayors who met with Secretary of Administration and Finance Jay Gonzalez, Gov. Deval Patrick's budget chief, before the hearing by the Legislature's Public Service Committee.
Patrick has filed a bill that would require all cities and towns to put their workers into the state's Group Insurance Commission or institute a program of equivalent value and cost by the start of 2012 fiscal year on July 1.
The governor's bill would also require cities and towns to move eligible municipal retirees into Medicare, a shift that the administration said will save municipalities an estimated $15 million to $30 million annually.
Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray, himself a former mayor of Worcester, said he understands the daunting challenges facing municipal leaders. Murray said Patrick's bill will help cities and towns begin to get their health costs under control.
"It is critical that we continue to give cities and towns as many tools as possible to manage their bottom lines," Murray told the committee. "It is similarly important that we continue to respect the collective bargaining relationship and the unions that represent our valued public sector employees."
Murray urged lawmakers to act quickly to give municipalities a chance to begin saving health care costs in the new fiscal year that begins July 1. He said the Legislature should try to get a bill to Patrick's desk by the end of the month.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, has said he would press to require Massachusetts cities and towns to put their municipal employees into the Group Insurance Commission, a move he said would save up to $100 million.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Anger Brews Over Government Workers' Benefits
The Associated Press | 08 Mar 2011 | 08:15 AM ET
When Erin McFarlane looks at public workers, she sees lucrative pension benefits she doesn't ever expect to get. And it makes her mad.
"I don't think that a federal employee or government employee is worth any more than anybody else who does their job and does it well," said the Slinger, Wis., woman. She's been working a couple of bartending jobs since January, when she was laid off from her job at a Harley Davidson plant after almost a decade.
She's not alone in seeing public servants as public enemies in some ways.
It's a case of pension envy.
For McFarlane, 36, it's part of a ubiquitous discussion, at the bars where she works and on Facebook. And it's the center of some of the biggest political battles playing out in state capitals across the country as governors say their states can no longer afford the benefits that public employees have been promised.
Government workers in McFarlane's state have rallied for weeks against Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to take away many collective bargaining rights, saying that would amount to killing the middle class.
A USA Today/Gallup poll last month found show that Americans largely side with the employees, though about two in five that want government pay and benefits reined in.
Barbara Davis, a retiree from Cherry Hill, N.J., has been watching public workers in rallies in Madison, Wis., as well as Trenton. She says the protesters are wrong about tightening benefits hurting the middle class.
"I'm sorry, but what they're doing is telling off the middle class," said Davis, 76, and a co-chairwoman of the Cherry Hill Area Tea Party. "The middle-class people don't get all the goodies that they do."
At its heart, the issue is this: Some public workers get a sweet deal compared to other workers. And it's taxpayers who pay for it.
That's set off resentment in a time when economic doldrums have left practically everyone tightening their belts. Many people have found their tax bills rising even if their earnings haven't.
In Davis' case, it's the property tax that smarts. She and her husband pay about $12,000 per year for the house she describes as a three-bedroom "tract home." That's a high tax even in New Jersey, where the average property tax bill tops $7,000 and where the Tax Foundation has found homeowners pay three and a half times the national median.
A half century ago, industrial jobs at car and steel plants provided high salaries and rich benefits. But as manufacturing moved overseas, many formerly well-paid workers had to take lower-paying jobs. By the end of the Great Recession, the economic order was undeniably changed.
"It's the government sector worker who's the new elite, the highest-paid worker on the block," said David Gregory, who teaches labor and employment law at New York's St. John's University.
For instance, most non-uniformed public employees who have worked in New Jersey for 30 years with an ending salary of $85,000 can look forward to retiring at 55 with an annual pension of about $46,000. Working until age 60 and a salary of $90,000 can bring a pension of $57,000. And many of the New Jersey's public-sector retirees have no or low premiums for their health insurance.
For a private-section worker who retires at 55, relying solely on a 401(k) without an employer match, it would take a $100 contribution to a plan every week for 30 years and getting an annual return over 7 percent to get to the same level of pension benefit as the public worker retiring at that age. Those benefits would run out after 25 years for the 401(k) retiree.
To be fair, most public-sector retirees don't get such rich pensions. New Jersey's Treasury Department says the average annual pension due state workers who retired between July 2009 and June 2010 was just over $30,000 per year; for local government employees, it was about $20,000.
And the members of the state's two biggest public employee retirement systems are required to pay 5.5 percent of their base salaries into the pension funds.
St. John's Gregory says the rest of the benefits are deferred compensation promised to workers instead of better salaries.
National data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms that public-sector workers do better when it comes to pensions and benefits.
As of last September, professional and management workers in the private sector were making $34.91 in hourly salary; public sector professionals made $33.17 an hour.
The government entities spent 1.7 times as much on health care per employee-hour worked and nearly twice as much on retirement costs. Public-sector workers—who are more often represented by unions—are far more likely to have defined-benefit pensions with promises to pay for the retirees' whole lives.
Olivia Mitchell, a professor of insurance and risk management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, says the data isn't perfect. It doesn't compare workers with the same education or experience levels, and it covers a broad range of jobs. Also, she said, it doesn't take into account that about one-fourth of public workers aren't covered by Social Security.
There's one clear downside for the public employees: "We also know that the public-sector pensions are in deep trouble financially," Mitchell said, pointing to studies that suggest that they're underfunded by a total of $3 trillion, largely because governments have skipped payments. "Exactly what will be done about that, nobody knows."
Unchanged, those retirement systems could eventually stop paying entirely.
"One way or another, if we don't make changes, the government will collapse," said Abel Stewart, of Toledo, Ohio.
Stewart, 36, the director of contemporary worship at a Methodist church in suburban Toledo, says he has a hard time conjuring up sympathy for the government workers he's seen protesting because of all the time he's spent working with struggling immigrants.
"These are middle class people who have a house, who have enough food, who are complaining they don't have enough," he said. "Instead of fighting for their piece of the political pie, they'd be better looking at how to live within their means."
That's not a unanimous view.
Tony Christoff, a 38-year-old stay-at-home dad in Perrysburg, Ohio, believes public workers like police officers and teachers—including his wife—should be rewarded. "They go over and above and deserve the pay they get," he said.
Jeff Nash is a Democrat elected to the county freeholder board in union-heavy Camden County, N.J., who has come to believe that public employees need to sacrifice.
"The days of government workers receiving free benefits and pensions without risk, those days are coming to an end because everyone else who pays for government services is paying more for their health insurance, like myself, and running the risk of a 401(k) as part of their retirement savings. Government is changing to match what the rest of middle-class America is enduring today."
"It's not a matter of fairness," he said. "It's a matter of evolution."
Hetty Rosenstein, the New Jersey director of the Communications Workers of America, which represent New Jersey government workers in several fields, says she gripes about her members' pensions are misplaced.
"There's pension envy because people who are working in the private sector, they're being denied pensions," she said.
© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/41965569/
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NOW California's Biggest Pension Fund Wants To Cut Its Earnings Forecast
Grace Wyler | Mar. 11, 2011, 2:53 PM | 1,151 | 13
Fixing Pensions Requires Cutting Existing Benefits
CalPERS, California's largest public employee pension fund, is considering cutting its earnings forecast, a move that would surely inflame a heated national debate over the cost of public employee retirement.
Actuaries for CalPERS recommended lowering the forecast by a quarter of a percentage point, conceding that investment returns are expected to be lower over the next decade, the Sacramento Bee reports.
CalPERS earnings outlook has been the subject of heated debate in Sacramento since state and local governments were forced to make up for pension fund investment losses during the recession. A Stanford study of California's pension systems' last year found that overly optimistic forecasts were concealing about $500 billion in unfunded liabilities.
A lower discount rate would deal a huge blow to California municipalities and school districts, most of which are already struggling with growing pension and personnel costs.
Check out 7 charts that show how pensions are crushing the Golden State >>
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/now-californias-biggest-pension-fund-wants-to-cut-its-earnings-forecast-2011-3#ixzz1GUdJfDu4
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California Moves Closer Toward Default
BigGovernment.com ^ | 3/15/2011 | Chriss W. Street
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California tax payers just took a huge punch in the nose from the same actuaries who provided the cover for state politicians to spike public employee retirement benefits. The latest shocker comes from California State Controller John Chiang who yesterday unveiled a new actuarial report that shows California faces another unfunded debt of $59.9 billion to pay for retiree health and dental benefits over the next 30 years.
Controller Chiang highlighted that the unfunded liability grew during the 2010 fiscal year by $8.1 billion; an amount equal to almost 25% of this year’s entire California kindergarten through high school education budget.
Actuaries have aided and abetted the explosion in under-funding of pension and healthcare liabilities for public employee pension plans over the last ten years. With most public employee pension plans fully funded in 2000, a preposterous actuary study gave assurances that the technology stock market bubble of the 1990s would continue its high returns never burst.
(Excerpt) Read more at biggovernment.com ...