The question posed in the title is a bit loaded. First, teachers will say yes while others will say no. We pulled a couple of charts and information from an article from a May 2018 article published in Intellectual Takeout. The latest data is for 2017. In a report at National Center for Education Statistics we find the following chart: Those figures generally exclude benefits, such as health insurance, paid leave, and pensions. According to the Department of Labor, benefits comprise an average of 33% of compensation for public school teachers. This excludes unfunded pension liabilities and certain post-employment benefits like health insurance, which are not measured by the … [Read more...]
Washington State Teachers Pension Plan Liabilities – Healthy or Sick?
Given the teacher strikes around Washington State as we started the 2018/19 school year we thought it would be interesting to investigate the status (health) of the Washington State Retirement System (TRS) to see how well it's funded and what the public is on the hook for if there is a shortfall. Please note that the newest data we can find is through the summer of 2018 and thus does NOT include the impact of the recent double-digit salary increases. So, what we are about to present is the "best case" scenario. This review is ONLY for the teachers retirement fund. There are other retirement funds that appear to be in different financial conditions. Again, this is ONLY for the teachers TRS … [Read more...]