State should keep paying teacher pension costs

Our Opinion

Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009

So as tempting as this idea might be to state lawmakers trying to swim through a river of red ink, it should be dropped.

The state government, even with an influx of $3.8 billion as part of the federal stimulus package, is still looking for ways to save on escalating and recurring costs, and this is one idea. The state now pays those teacher pension costs, which are projected to increase by $137 million in next year's budget. Legislation has been proposed by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller to make local government pay those costs for new teachers and the additional pension expense of salary increases.

In St. Mary's County teacher pension costs total $13 million a year.

In fairness, there are good reasons why forcing local governments to start to pick up some of these costs is tempting for legislators. In St. Mary's, both the county government and the school system are carrying what in these times are healthy fund balances — read surpluses — going into next year's budget. They'll tell you that is because of wise and prudent use of their funding, but it's also because St. Mary's had the second-highest weekly wage in the state in the spring of last year and because property values have held up here better than elsewhere. That means tax revenues have stayed strong while they have weakened elsewhere.

Since these teacher pension costs have to be paid from taxes and fees one way or another, does it really matter which pot of money it comes from? Yes, and here's why St. Mary's schools would suffer if these costs shift to the county. Local funding for schools is always a negotiation. The school board decides how to spend it, but the county commissioners decide how much it will be. One more fixed cost would be added to the school budget, and this is a cost that does nothing to educate the children in the classroom today. It will go to pay pensions of teachers after they are no longer working.

At local public hearings teachers would spend their energy fighting for their pensions.

Don't get the wrong idea. Teachers are entitled to these pensions. The reasons St. Mary's has the second-highest paychecks in the state is certainly not because of teacher salaries. In compensation teachers have good health insurance that will continue into their retirement and a secure pension. Those things may look more appealing in these days when 401k retirement plans have cratered, but they are things teachers have earned.

Arguing about them in St. Mary's and 23 other school systems in the state every year would inevitably move the focus and finances away from the things the schools need in the classroom.

The state has been generous in hiking financial aid to the public schools in recent years. And there are legislators and other state officials who will argue with justification that St. Mary's and other local governments have not stepped up in equal measure. That debate will continue, but in the end the schools will suffer less from that push and pull than from perpetually putting the local focus on how to pay the pensions of retired teachers.