"estimates that the pension obligation in Pennsylvania will cost every household in the state more than $1,500 per year for the next 30 years". that sounds fair.....$45,000 dollars of my hard earned money to back the democratic party. So many things wrong with that. I guess I wouldn't be so damn pissed if they would use it for the people that it is supposed to be for. People wonder why non union people can't stand the unions. Great example

First off I understand that it's wasn't the teachers that created this. I don't care who it was that has created this, its wrong. If I as a private individual loose money in my portfolio who makes up for my retirement ??? I just don't understand why its not a defined contribution. You pick what you want to invest in if it goes up 10% great you reap the benefits but if it looses or underperforms you loose like the rest of us. Just not fair that the taxpayers are on the hook to make up the difference. Nothing against PSERS or SRES we should all be in this together.

Part of the unfunded liability is directly due to state employers who cut themselves a fund break several years ago--and catch up is very painful ..individual employees generally paid in about 7.5% of wages along the way. Don't blame unions for that one--blame elected officials! Unfortunately to win the blame game does not solve any funding issues.

Some employer groups do get special treatment --like charter schools --they need not pay into PSERS, you and I as taxpayers get that pleasure for them . And I think there are some extra liberal retirement rules as they apply to some elected officials who participate in the plan( gee, wonder how that happened) and I think State Police also get more liberal benefits (that I understand) . Older workers get the short end of the sick as in effect the fixed benefits favor people who retire young. By and large charter schools are not full of union employees --that said --just why do charter schools get special sweethearts for pensions if not to further anti-union forces currently in Harrisburg? That one should be a no brainer to fix...albeit not large numbers, yet.

And I think there are a couple of other costly quirks in the various rules:
1. In short the state taxpayers at large get shafted to cover the pension costs generated by poorly managed districts which do not cover a large portion of their own costs on a local basis. I'll bet that costs taxpayers billions!
2.Some high level employees have personal contracts which allow ways for their own pensions to be boosted by a hefty fraction in final years

Now combine 1 and 2 for some districts !

Social Security is going broke. If anyone suggests reform, they are demonized by the same people here who argue that they paid taxes into the system and deserve it. The same goes for Medicare. Our wonderful elected officials also those programs to buy votes. Teachers paid 7.5% of their incomes into the plan for their entire time teaching. Now you folks want to deny them their pensions because you don't like paying taxes. Are you willing to give up your Social Security and Medicare?

Both parties are at fault here, but do you really want a government that won't live up to their words and obligations?

There is nothing I resent MORE than the school tax - it goes UP every single year. Of course we (the taxpayers) hears a whole lot of hulla-ball-oo about what causes it's rise, but in the end we all know it's just the democrats raising taxes AGAIN!

Bend over.... the sacred teachers need their pensions. They are so important and work so hard. So what if you don't have any pension.... your job in far far far less important. Teachers need to be paid very high wages and very very high benefits, even though there are 5 million unemployed teachers in PA, and about 500,000 new ones each May. Supply (super high) and demand (super low) means we have to pay teachers top top dollar and gold plated benefits.

Crestor --before you assume I'm an idiot --go back and read the PA Charter School law --the folks in charter schools most certainly get pension coverage -in fact even Lehigh Valley people per PA Auditor General who were not entitled to get paid in first place were able to suck up pension benefits (There is a technical option that if the school had a nonPSERS plan in place before it became a charter that folks could continue that prior plan) The real sweetheart is that the leaders of your local charter schools need not fund the pension--we as taxpayers do it directly --now do the math of places like ChesterUpland where a major fraction of kids are in charter schools. Now here is a play (oversimplified) work 20 years at some low pay charter , transfer to a local public school on full scale with full credit for 20 years of prior service and work just 3 more years at say 4 X prior salary, pay little into system but bump your pension by over 400% !

you guys are missing the point. It's the union's in the pocket of the legislature and government that is the problem. First reform, NO using of pension in any way to back ANY candidate. union dues should be used to cover laid off teachers and govt workers we all know that there should be a huge lay off with government workers. And I am not talking your local municipality I am talking federal and some state workers. Second thing Today switch all new hires from defined contribution to some kind of 401K style. We recently did that at upper Milford, will take years for the defined contribution to go away but at least there is light at the end of the tunnel, not just adding to the mountain. These legislators need to stop worrying about what bridge they want to name after someone and fix the real problems

Schools technically are units of state government in PA. --I will grant you that unions are part of the problem---but if I were a higher level school administrator and part of my salary was factored on some sort of parity with the workers --for example building principals who think they need to get paid more than any of their staff (not an uncommon view many places even in real world) ) then I'm sure that many a principal silently prays for teachers to get wage increases!!!

I'm not up on pension math--if the plan has returned 12% over the last 3 years (the stock market has been pretty good of late) and the included discount rate is 7.5% then the plan has earned a rate capable of sustaining itself UNLESS the employers did not make sufficient current contribution (as they did not) or some hacks are getting very fat administrator/trustee/management fees someplace in the equation.(Who would think that is possible.)

Employee + employer contributions make up less than 30% of the inflows to the fund; over 70% is from investment returns, and that is where the stress has come from in recent years. The 'break' on taxpayers from about 10 years ago came about because returns were sufficient such that the fund was over-funded, not underfunded. The 7.5% employee contributions is a recent number, and historically was less, like 5%. The employer/taxpayer contribution has always varied, based on the health of the fund returns. Basically, the fund is mostly dependent on fund returns, and only partially by employee and taxpayer contributions. But when times get tight, and those same taxpayers are getting hammered on their own pension returns, the current political solution is to endlessly burden them to make up not only for the losses in their own pension fund returns, but the pension fund returns of the state employee system.

Easy partial solution --a defined benefit plan gives one say 87.5% of the high 3 consecutive years after 35 years if one retires at 59 or 69 or 79 or whatever--and old people have obviously shorter life expectancy --so merely hire OLDER teachers? Learn to use ones brains.

i would add my opinion,but pan dora sure has the same opinion as i have hurrah for pan dora

The collapse of the PSERS system is going to be fun to watch. The teachers and retired teachers will bust their intestines whining, protesting and bitching about this. There ain't gonna be the money there to support it... no way they will get $1,500 a year for 30 years out of taxpayers. The gig is up.... real world, here you come!!

Hey look--colleges will churn out degrees for jobs that do not exist---and student loans will go unpaid --sowhat else is new.

I told one school authority attorney his client's bonds were callable -and could have been called at the time to save some decent money - -the idiot told me I was wrong and life went on as usual --so what else is new (Took me all of a few minutes to confirm at least to myself who was right )

Look, if people lay off low paid hourly lunchroom aides and replace them with far higher paid salaried teachers we all save a lot of money, right?

Well Obama will fix all of this.... "We have to invest in America, we have to get teachers back into the classroom, police back on the streets and construction workers back to building our infrastructure".... ya, and if you are in the private sector, just STFU and pay for all this, and when you get laid off, tough. That's how the democrats do it. Right now, right below this post, I have to stare at the usual "Stand with me, work with me" Obama ad. Ugh...

If you think teaching is such a cushy job, try dealing with a roomful of somebody else's bratty children for 7 hours a day and see how you like it. If there are problems with the pension system, and there are, blame the jackasses in Harrisburg whom YOU vote for year after year. BTW, if you can read this, thank a teacher. And, no, I am not a teacher.

During the last decade, the union controlled legislature unwisely diverted money from the pension to keep increasing salaries without raising taxes. Chickens are coming hone to roost now since they knew the pensions were guaranteed anyway.

A job paying $45,000 that requires a real degree is not necessarily too high or too low and not out of line and perhaps a bit on the low side of what somebody from Lehigh might earn staring from college? Where I have a hang up is being forced to underwrite salaries in districts that are unwilling or unable to pay their own way --salaries in the real world may vary a lot by location --why should folks in some limited income farm community or urban setting be forced to pay teachers high salaries inconsistent with the markets they serve.

It amazes me how people really attack people who really do work for a living just over how they get a couple more bucks than others even though the ones complaining seem envious enough but have never gotten an education to be hired in the area where they are upset that others are getting a living income from working in. On the other hand the 1% and bankers and bailed out companies get away with murder and live off the taxpayer and no one gives a hoot anymore it seems. Picking on the working man or woman here will not solve any problems. But allowing the super rich and privileged corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes seems to be OK no matter how many times the taxpayers have to bail them out for bad decisions. I can't join in this blog of verbally lynching the working person for problems created by greediest in our society who never have enough and might surely have made slaves of us all to serve them in poverty. One thing I do believe is "There is no greater gift than the gift of education".

One problem with the education system has nothing to do with the salaries of teachers, but the cost of college. To wit:

Forty years ago, when a starting teacher might get $6,000, the price of a very nice new entry level car was half that at $3,000, but the cost of college tuition at elite institutions like Lehigh was under $1,000 per semester, makinhg that the cost of four years of college (excluding room and board) the a hair more than the starting teaching salary.

Today, a starting teacher at $45,000 can still buy a very nice entry level car for half his/her salary. However the cost for just one year of tuition (never mind room and board, as in the previous example) at the elite schools is also about $45,000 per year. That means that it takes 4 years to payback the $180,000 tuition at the starting teacher's salary. Ditto for engineers or acountants, etc.

The problem isn;t the starting salary - it still pays for the same goods (and I could give other examples like a gallon of milk) - rather it's the cost of college. And the problem isn't the interest rate on loans - it's the fact the the loans dupe kids, parents, and families into paying the inflated college costs.

Crestor --once again you simply have no clue --it most certainly is possible to bump up a pension --its routinely done in many walks of life and in modest amounts nobody gets their underwear in knots over same and many folks cannot make major bumps -but- -so if say a prison guard has a retirement plan based on high one year --and guards just happen to triple their base wage with wads of OT in final counted year --then more than feathers need to be ruffled...Recall one LV police retirement rule?

Crestor --You would flunk Econ 101. The demand for teachers (aided and abetted by union interests at a national level) is going thru the roof! With mandatory goals and requirements of things like No Child Left Behind, wads of IEP and 504 students , and mandatory so to be 100% goal to pass statewide tests, the requirements are thru the roof. Sure, in short run one can lay off 100 teachers in a large system but by about 2015 they will need 400 more with current delivery models. Taxpayers will get the shaft!
Do you know that for all practical purposes , an illegal can walk in and be entitled to a free local education, worse, I could recruit 100 kids from say Korea and enroll them "free" plus 100 from NYC also "free" and with the advent of cyber/charter technology , enroll 100 in Mexico or where ever and send the bill to my local public school

In PA, it is not lawful to layoff teachers for purely economic reasons. Districts can eliminate entire programs, but they cannot simply cut staff across the board to match revenues. Districts must rely on attrition-- retirements not made up by a like number of new hires -- in order to adjust staff levels. It isn't always enough.

I love teachers, always have. I know that they aren't all uniformly union hawks. Many love their calling, and earn every penny they are paid, and then some. But some of what they tolerate in their union leaders is just unsightly and shameful.

Education after all is primarily taken, not given. It is at most well offered. That is what great teachers do; they not only well offer, but the very best sometimes wheedle, cajole, and trick the unwilling into actively taking their education. They try to do this no matter what crappy attitudes kids show up with from home, where parents see public school as day care and take zero responsibility for the crappy attitudes of their children in school. Most show up, slouch in their seats, and wait for their education 'gift' to be given to them. It is the offer to take which is the gift, but the gift must still be taken.

Average teachers do what they must and can. Great teachers accept the challenge and often manage to turn average students into great students. I've had many great teachers like that (in ASD) and I am grateful to all of them, even the average teachers.

Well, it is possible to reverse engineer and furlough teachers and make the economics fit with a rubber stamp from Harrisburg .
Now if you understand the math it probably makes more sense to pay people at the top to walk off into the sunset (not necessarily retire, just walk off the payroll) than to furlough from the bottom --but few understand the math.
As an aside--if one racks up massive government student loans and then teachs for a mere 5 years in a Title 1 schools all the loans get forgiven, tax free ; a major portion of public schools are Title 1 schools