By Hannah Hess, Virginia Statehouse News
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Teachers rallied in Richmond Monday to ask legislators to fund the teacher retirement system. (Photo by Hannah Hess, Virginia Statehouse News)
RICHMOND - More than 300 educators raised their voices in protest of the budget gaps local school divisions are facing because of the General Assembly’s decision to defer Virginia Retirement System payments in 2011.
“Does forcing our local governments to make huge contributions to VRS, to make up for the bad decisions that the General Assembly made last year, does that sound like standing up for education to you?” Virginia Parent-Teacher Association president Anne Carson asked the crowd of educators waving their signs under a gray January sky.
“No,” yelled the teachers, who represented the 60,000-member Virginia Education Association, the statewide organization that encouraged them to carpool to Richmond. Teachers left their local school districts for a lobby day, leaving substitutes in charge of the classrooms.
For Manassas special education teacher Kellie Blair Hardt, 36, retirement funding is a key issue for this year’s General Assembly.
The state’s woefully underfunded Virginia Retirement System is not sustainable, she said, and it’s time to pick up the tab. Last year, the state deferred its payment, adding to the $20-billion gap between what’s been promised to teachers and what the state can afford to pay.
The move amounted to “placing the deficit on the backs of educators who are still in the system, and are not going to retire for 20 years,” Blair Hardt said. “It’s going to hit us and it’s not fair.”
Blair Hardt and her colleagues are beneficiaries of the state pension system. The Virginia Retirement System operates as a defined-benefit system to which public employees dedicate 5 percent of their pay in return for a guaranteed state check, as well as health-care coverage, in retirement.
But the system is not solvent.
Virginia’s $52 billion pension system is at least $19.9 billion short of meeting its obligations to retirees, according to state estimates. Other accounting standards have estimated the budget gap at $50 billion.
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Stock market turmoil since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007 has left the state with 66 percent funding for teachers — down from nearly 107 percent funding in 2001. That means, if all the state’s educators retired tomorrow, only 66 percent could get their full benefits.
“Even if it doesn’t benefit them directly, I think every taxpayer would like to see (VRS) solvent,” said House Majority Leader Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights.
Cox and his colleagues are supporting the plan proposed by Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell.
McDonnell said more money is needed immediately — he suggested $2.2 billion, the largest employer contribution in the state’s history, including $876 million in state general fund dollars.
The teachers rallied Monday to ensure the state provides the general funds McDonnell has promised, not to find a solution for local schools that must cover the rest.
Declining property tax revenues resulting from slipping home values make it a challenge for local boards to figure out how to compensate teachers, fund classrooms and pay into the retirement system.
According to a National Education Association analysis, average teacher pay in Virginia is $48,365. This compares to $44,701 in West Virginia; $62,849 in Maryland; $62,557 in the District of Columbia; and $48,648 in North Carolina.
"We have to strike that balance between saddling the taxpayers of any given jurisdiction with carrying on the teachers, and giving the teachers a sufficient income," said Fairfax County School Board member Elizabeth Schultz, of the Springfield district.
Schultz said the state loses out if it can no longer attract the "best and the brightest," who may abandon Virginia for states that offer better pay.
There seems to be some justifiable confusion about the teachers' point. Because the governor has mandated that localities make payments into VRS this year to make up for underfunding in the past, school districts are facing a sudden need to add several million dollars in spending this year. This means they will have to make several million dollars in cuts, after having made cuts several times in the past few years. WJCC, York, and other school districts are discussing making substantial cuts that will probably mean larger class sizes and the end of popular and effective programs. That's what the teachers were protesting. These problems with the VRS result from problems in funding in the past, among other things. That has nothing to do with the issue of how to fund VRS now and in the future, or how much teachers contribute to their pensions.
Last week, Monday was a holiday, the teachers chose yesterday to go and protest. If over 300 teachers were at the protest, who paid for the substitutes to teach? The GA was in session on the Holiday, why not protest then and save the localities some money?
Bobsferjobs would rather campaign for Romney in South Carolina than work for real education improvements here in Virginia. His current budget plans redirect money from education to transportation AND he wants TOLLS! Contact Pogge, Watson, Norment, and Miller to express your opposition to this shell game that shortchanges our children and collective future. Bob's a boob. And so is Kookinelli.
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These problems with the VRS result from problems in funding in the past, among other things. That has nothing to do with the issue of how to fund VRS now and in the future, or how much teachers contribute to their pensions.