19 Cities With Proportionately Bigger Workforces Than Bankrupted Detroit

[vt]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/exogra...rticle/2533338

Think your federal taxes will go up? Sure, but the bite will also skyrocket at the local and state level. All politics are local. We need to tame the pension monster before its too late.
By the way the figures do not include teachers or any employees in the education system.

I spoke to a young teacher who works part time for me in the Washington, D.C. area. Teacher salaries are very high in this area, but their is also a pension trick they are using. Teachers in Fairfax County, Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland can both retire after 30 years with 60% of salary at as young as 51! Some are making close to $100K by retirement. Soon after retirement they cross the river to the other county and get a top salary and earn another pension!

How are taxpayers going to support $60K indexed to inflation pensions for 51 year olds who might live another 40 years? There is no way the math can work.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/ersc/employees/pay/schedules/Salary_Schedule_FY2014.pdf

[Andreuccio]

Re: 19 Cities With Proportionately Bigger Workforces Than Bankrupted Detroit

http://washingtonexaminer.com/exogra...rticle/2533338

Think your federal taxes will go up? Sure, but the bite will also skyrocket at the local and state level. All politics are local. We need to tame the pension monster before its too late.
By the way the figures do not include teachers or any employees in the education system.

I spoke to a young teacher who works part time for me in the Washington, D.C. area. Teacher salaries are very high in this area, but their is also a pension trick they are using. Teachers in Fairfax County, Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland can both retire after 30 years with 60% of salary at as young as 51! Some are making close to $100K by retirement. Soon after retirement they cross the river to the other county and get a top salary and earn another pension!

How are taxpayers going to support $60K indexed to inflation pensions for 51 year olds who might live another 40 years? There is no way the math can work.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/ersc/employees/pay/schedules/Salary_Schedule_FY2014.pdf

Wow! Teacher salaries are really high there. Here in Los Angeles we top out at about $80,000. They can make almost $130,000 there.

Pensions aren't quite as generous here, either. I ran the numbers on the Virginia retirement system's calculator and the CalSTRS calculator. A 51 year old with 30 years experience would get 51% of their salary in Virginia, vs. 41% here.

The pensions are supposed to be paid for by money set aside from teacher salaries and invested by the plan. Doing a rough calculation on an investment calculator, and using this salary scale from Fairfax County

http://www.fcps.edu/hr/salary/pdf/fy...teacher%20.pdf

which tops out just shy of $100,000, an 8% salary deduction like we have in L.A. would yield about $425,000 after 30 years assuming a 6% annual return. Rounding way up for math errors, let's say that yields $500,000. 6% of that is $30,000, far short of the 51% of $100,000 the calculator promises.

I didn't go too in depth, but I'm guessing the 60% number you have comes from a supplemental pension that's available if you work extra hours. We have that too, although extra hours are much harder to come by than they were a few years ago. I've got a decent amount set aside in one of those, but I think I'll be taking a lump sum for that rather than the annuity offered, which pays at 6%.

The pensions here are a few billion short of solvent. I don't see how they could be anywhere close there. Maybe they take more out of salaries.

The salaries are amazing there, though. Is there a teacher shortage? Here people are getting laid off right and left, and we haven't had a pay raise in several years. Pay there for an experienced teacher is almost 40% higher than here. Maybe it's time to consider relocating to Virginia.

Addendum: OMG!!! I dug around a little more and found this page:

http://www.varetire.org/members/bene...p?pt=p2&pn=vrs

They don't take more than California's 8% out of salaries to fund pensions. Apparently they only take out 5%. So they're going to fund a $51,000 pension with a bit over $300,000 of assets. Good plan. I really hope I missed a lot in my cursory web search and back of the envelope calculations.

[BK]

Re: 19 Cities With Proportionately Bigger Workforces Than Bankrupted Detroit

All those tough years 2000-2013 and teacher were still getting their 1-4% increases and the step pay raises.

I suspect many Teacher go home at night and think "thank god most people hate math" - people forget to consider that teachers work 185 days of the year - a way better deal than the typical corporation where you might get 3 weeks vacation and 10 holidays.

Sadly, there are a good number of teachers who can do math.... there is no way to support the current salary system or pensions without enslaving the population and taking all of their wealth.

My Dad started in teaching when there was no Union, but sadly he retire because of health in 1984. The 1980s and 1990s are when the Teachers Unions really hit their stride and talked communities in to pay packages that were unsustainable long term.

I grew up in a house with two teachers and teachers salaries meant you were living a very modest life. Today two teachers salaries can easily put a household in the $180,000 bracket - and if the wife becomes a guidance teacher salaries go over $100,000-$120,00 - or an administration job.

A school system needs lots of teachers, you want the best people possible, but paying large number of teachers big salaries is only doable when interest are falling for thirty year - house values are rising - and tax payers are fooled into believing that their home will increase in value to infinity.

[Fox]

Re: 19 Cities With Proportionately Bigger Workforces Than Bankrupted Detroit

I suspect many Teacher go home at night and think "thank god most people hate math"

No they don't. Many teachers I know say "We deserve it". Many teachers I know are also no good at math. My ex wife being an embarrassingly prime example of this.

Here in the great white north a teacher's job is 6.5 hour days 9 months of the year. And up till this year they received 26 sick days a year that could be BANKED. Taking a year off with full pay on "sick days" is very common. Oh and yes, with ladder steps and yearly increases, my ex's typical raise was 8% a year. Crazy stuff. All in all, very good evidence of Mitch Shedock's idea that Public servants should not be unionized. The power balance is just too skewed towards the employee.

My ex is also contributing 15% of her salary to her pension with the government matching. Now imagine, 30% of the salary pouring in and the fund is still "underfunded". This is the Ontario teacher's pension btw, which at last check was the 13th largest investment fund in the world.

Too bad she wasn't a decent person to live with. I'd be a rich man today. But sometimes the money just isn't worth it.

edited****
wow, did I ever muff up that post. well at least most teachers I know are good at writing.
funny thing is, I was kind of "stoned" on hot sauce after lunch when I wrote that. mmm, feel the burn

P.S.: I should add that a lot of this is turning around. Our Liberal "teacher friendly" provincial government, barred the teachers (and all provincial public union members) from striking; froze their salaries for 3 years; and chopped the sick days down to 10 with no banking.

So public servants beware, the opening salvos are being fired.