McClellan: ASRS not a ‘Cadillac benefit’
Mike McClellan
Mike McClellan is a Gilbert resident and former English teacher at Dobson High School in Mesa.
Welcome to the discussion.
-
Current users sign in here.
14 comments:
Rules of Conduct
© Copyright 2013, East Valley Tribune, Tempe, AZ. [Terms of Use | Privacy Policy]
A Division of 10/13 Communications
pir8fan posted at 7:30 am on Wed, Jul 18, 2012.
Mr McClellan has made an excellent analysis of the ASRS Defined Benefit Pension Plan. Unfortunately, this topic has become a political issue, and therefore, Facts are not allowed in the conversation. The only thing that makes the ASRS plan a Cadillac Plan is its plan health (not to be confused with health plan), and that plan health is a direct result of Paul Matson's leadership and team.
Thank you Mr McClellan for a thoughtful, accurate, FACTUAL, neutral analysis.
Accuracy posted at 8:59 am on Wed, Jul 18, 2012.
There is more than one ASRS……
Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS) www.azasrs.gov
The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) asrs.arc.nasa.gov
The American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS) www.asrs.org
chatmandu002 posted at 11:52 am on Wed, Jul 18, 2012.
So is the ASRS underfunded now? By how much? Do you want us to pay more taxes to refund the program or do you want the employees to pay more into the fund? Or should we reform the ASRS to move people to a 401K fund like program?
Trying to blame the right wing media and their accomplices, of which there are few, for the outrages against over generous government pensions isn't going to fly. The government sector pensions ARE overly generous in most states and most are severely underfunded, especially the public sector union pensions.
Financial industry reform? How much reform do you want? Haven't the democrats passed several financial reforms? Or are you calling for the complete takeover of the financial industry by the government? Besides the only one playing with "our money" is the government. And yes the government is playing fast and loose with "our money" almost like they were in Vegas. Making bets on who will or won't succeed according to political policy.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 2:53 pm on Wed, Jul 18, 2012.
WAAAHHHHH......WAAAHHHHHH......WAAAHHHHHHHHH.....POOR MISTREATED TEACHERS.........NOW THAT'S A ...........HOOT.
DON'T BELIEVE ME....THE JUST GO INTO YAHOO SEARCH...TYPE IN....AZ REPUBLIC "PUBLIC PENSIONS, A SOARING BURDEN"....THERE IS A COMPREHENSIVE 8-PART SERIES ON ....A.S.R.S. ...THE ARIZONA STATE RETIREMENT SYSTEM.
A.S.R.S........IS IN THE ARIZONA HARD-WORKING (AS OPPOSED TO THE "HARDLY-WORKING" EDUCATORS WHO HAVE A 2 1/2 MONTH PAID SUMMER VACATION, 11 PAID HOLIDAYS AND 12 PAID SICK DAYS)....TAX-PAYERS ARE IN THE HOLE FOR .......$10 BILLION DOLLARS (BILLION WITH A "B").
YES, FOLKS...YOU WONDER WHY THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OVER IN THE STATE BUDGET FOR EDUCATION....FOR EXTRA POLICE....FOR EXTRA FIREMEN....TO FIX OUR HIGHWAYS AND BRIDGES..........WELL, SIMPLE EXPLANATION.......OUT OF THE YEARLY ARIZONA BUDGET.....$1.5 BILLION DOLLARS HAS TO GO TO PAY THE ......"CADILLAC PENSIONS"....AND THE ..."CAVIAR RETIREMENT HEALTH CARE BENEFITS" OF OUR ......TEACHERS, PROFESSORS, POLICEMEN, FIREMEN, TRANSPORTATION WORKERS AND STATE GOVERNMENT WORKERS....$1.5 BILLION A YEAR FROM A ...........RECESSION-SQUEEZED TAX BASE (THE COST OF THE ARIZONA STATE RETIREMENT SYSTEM HAS GONE UP ....500% SINCE 2000..........FIVE HUNDRED PERCENT INCREASE......FOR WHAT.
ARE OUR STUDENTS BEING TAUGHT ...500% BETTER NOW THAN THEY WERE 12 YEARS AGO ???
ARE OUR POLICEMEN, FIREMEN, PUBLIC WORKERS.....WORKING 500% HARDER NOW THAN THEY DID 12 YEARS AGO ???
THE ANSWER IS A BIG FAT .........................N.O.
YOU WANNA FEEL SORRY FOR SOMEBODY...THE LOOK IN THE MIRROR BECAUSE THE ARIZONA HARD-WORKING TAX PAYER IS THE ......SUCKER....IN THIS ARIZONA STATE RETIREMENT SYSTEM .....FIASCO.
chuckles3 posted at 3:46 pm on Wed, Jul 18, 2012.
My retirement plans changed after the last crash, now I have to pay more to have the same retirement I planned for.
Your plan took a hit too Mike. Who should pay for the difference?
You are all about leveling the playing field it seems. Time to pony up.
Mike McClellan posted at 5:42 pm on Wed, Jul 18, 2012.
chuckles, great question:
1. No one's being asked to pay more to make up the "difference"
2. Except retirees, whose health insurance cost went up anywhere from $100 to $200 a month. I'm paying $1400 more a year than I was last year for my health insurance. You, the taxpayer (and me, too, by the way) didn't have to "pony up" a penny more.
JMJ posted at 7:11 pm on Wed, Jul 18, 2012.
Leon: Froot Loop. Reread the article. Take off your beer goggles, first. Comprehend what is being said. Stop yelling at everyone in your posts. We can hear you just fine in lower case letters.
Yawn. I'm going to go hang out with the grandkids on my Cadillac pension. What a joke.
sockratties posted at 10:34 pm on Wed, Jul 18, 2012.
Mike... good info. Keep up the good work.
as for california leon... don't feed the trolls, don't feed the useless trolls.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 11:29 pm on Wed, Jul 18, 2012.
LOL....EXCUSE ME.....EXCUSE ME.......WHAT'S THAT HUGE..."SUCKING SOUND"....THAT I HEAR EVERY TIME I DRIVE PAST A MESA PUBLIC SCHOOL......OH, YES......NOW I REMEMBER........IT'S PARENTS PULLING THEIR CHILDREN OUT OF THE MESA PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE THOUSANDS AND ENROLLING THEM IN ..........................CHARTER SCHOOLS.
I GUESS THEY WERE SICK AND TIRED OF THEIR KIDS BEING TAUGHT THE ...3-R's OF ........REVOLUTION, RACIAL/ETHNIC/LA RAZA STUDIES AND RADICALISM.........AND WANTED THEIR KIDS TO LEARN....READING....RIT-NIN AND RITHMATIC.
SEEMS THAT MESA'S PARENTS WANT THEIR KIDS TO LEARN PATRIOTISM AND RESPECT FOR OUR FLAG INSTEAD OF LEARNING HOW TO STAGE A STUDENT WALK-OUT AGAINST SB1070 AND HOW TO DEFACE OUR FLAG WITH OBSCENE GRAFFITI AND TOILET SEAT COVERS.
I WONDER HOW MANY OF MESA'S TEACHERS CAN EVEN RECITE THE PLEDGE OF ALLIGIANCE OR THE WORDS OF OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM....SOMETHING THE MESA SCHOOL DISTRICT HIRING COMMITTEE MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER.
samkat posted at 6:31 pm on Thu, Jul 19, 2012.
Leon: The big sucking sound you hear is the public education funds being pulled out of public education to fund charter schools run by special interest groups who in turn take very good care of our greedy politicians who make claims they have not substantiated. PS: I agree with some of the posters, learn to type without all caps.
I am not an educator but I am at least knowledgeable enough to read and Arizona public school teachers are among the lowest paid in the nation. Mike can verify my next point but that 2 1/2 month paid vacation is anything but. The teachers are busy preparing lesson plans and getting required certification/higher ed classes they need to stay proficient and even to maintain their jobs. the critics tend to forget these folks put a lot of money and effort into obtaining a college degree and even the critics should know job skills require initial and ongoing skill set updates for progression.
It is easy to criticize someone if you are not walking in the other person's shoes.
As for the 401k plans, mine took a hit in the early 1980s and has never recovered. Ditto for my IRA and stocks. If our state legislators had an opportunity they would raid the state retirement fund as they have everything else. They do manage however to take very good care of themselves. If I was "King for a Day" they would be term limited and not covered under any state pension fund. As is, they are overpaid and basically unnecessary for the little they do while in session. I will give credit where credit is due as there are a few, but very few who actually try to do what is right for their state constituents.
JMJ posted at 7:17 pm on Thu, Jul 19, 2012.
True, Samkat. The first summer I ever had "off" was in 2011 when I retired. All prior summers were spent teaching summer school and attending workshops, mostly out of state and on my own dime. The professional development offered here was a joke, and i wanted to interact with others from all over the U.S. since our state is/was seen as such a joke when it comes to education.
This is hardly a Cadillac pension when my insurance eats so much of my expenses every month. I still have to work, even with a pension. The best part of working now, however, is that I am not locked in anywhere, and I can work when I feel like it. Those of us who were in the trenches for years are leaving in massive numbers. We are being replaced with green, inexperienced neophytes who do not have mentors--the mentors are gone.
So glad my kids did not go into education. They saw the struggle and the amount of work that went in for the measly return. I am talking dollars and cents. There are greater rewards, of course, but tell that to the mortgage company and SRP and Century Link and college expenses and on and on. They make more than I ever did, and they can afford their families with extra to spare.
Cadillac pension? Hardly.
concernedcitizen posted at 10:59 am on Fri, Jul 20, 2012.
Mike, thank you for a great article and hopefully bringing to light that the "normal" workers who get ASRS benefits (teachers, policemen, firemen, etc., basically those at the bottom of the command chain) are the ones who get anything but a cadillac pension.
If anything, it is only the top administrators (and politicians) who get the cadillac pensions/benefits. If you want to talk about cadillac benefits, ask a US congressman (John McCain would be a good start) to disclose what they get for retirement and for their health care after they retire. THAT is a cadillac pension/health care system! No wonders people want to be become US congressmen so bad!
Maybe, just maybe, if our retirement system was a little better to teachers, and teachers got paid just a bit more for all their hard efforts, then just maybe we would get more of the high quality people that we so desperately need in education. We have a lot already, but the system does not motivate more to become educators as it is set up right now.
Ignore Leon and his ignorant comments. He doesn't understand because he has never walked in the shoes of an educator. If you want to get technical (and Leon would probably like this comment), the reason people are pulling their children from Mesa Schools and enrolling in charter schools is because of the influx of children who are not raised right and who are a poor example of behavior and can be a danger to their children. Right or wrong, a lot of people want their children to be able to learn in an environment free from distractions and significantly poor behaviors, and unfortunately that means they have to pull their kids from public schools to do so. And Mesa didn't lose 10's of thousands of students, they've lost I think about 8,000-10,000 students, a lot I suppose because of SB1070 and their families were here illegally and they didn't want to take a chance, also a lot of people moved out of Arizona recently to find jobs again, which also means a loss of student population.
I am a public school teacher, I do work my tail off, if there is any training I have to take I usually have to pay for it all myself, yes, my health insurance is covered, but it isn't that great, and I have to pay for my wife out of pocket. It is hard to keep things in perspective with people like Leon who complain about teachers all the time, I'm VERY grateful for my job and the benefits I actually do get, and I realize my situation is better than a lot of folks out there. When it comes down to it, the reality is teachers (at least those who are worth their salt), work harder than most and invest more than most, particularly if you compare to how much teachers get in return for their efforts. Yes, you have the occasional teacher who does something stupid to a child, you have that in every profession, however the majority are caring individuals who work super hard to help their students to learn. They don't have a "liberal" agenda, all the teachers I know don't have any agenda except to help their students learn the best they can.
I don't hear people who complain about "cadillac pensions" for teachers complaining about sports stars and all the millions they earn; nor about congressmen and their actual cadillac pensions; I could go on and on...
Cerulean posted at 5:23 pm on Fri, Jul 20, 2012.
I agree, Mike, thank you for this article.
Also, however off topic, I love your blogs on AzCentral titled “My new media hero: Morgan Loew” and “Let’s be honest: Trent Franks is a moron”!
Arpaio and Franks are Nth degree kooks.
bfineprint posted at 1:50 am on Sat, Aug 11, 2012.
Mike,
Very thoughtful op ed. If someone can't argue the facts, then they criticize you using non sequiturs. I would add to your article that the median ASRS pension is $15,300. That figure gives a better idea of what most state employees are receiving, prior to money being taken out for health insurance.
By the way, I told the writer of the pension stories at the Republic about state retirees having to pay 80% of their health insurance and he never included that information in his stories. As for the fact that ASRS has a $8-$10 billion liability, even though it's 75-80% funded, that isn't unusual. You have to think of it like a mortgage. That pension liability isn't due anytime soon, just like an entire 30-year mortgage amount isn't due after a few years. Finally, if the state hadn't been giving away the store the last 20 years, the state would have a lot more revenue to deal with any short-term shortfall -- $3 billion in annual revenue has been withdrawn due to continuous tax cuts that have neither increased net employment or revenue. Two-thirds to three-quarters of corporations in Arizona pay only the minimum $50 corporate tax, according to a study of corporate tax returns between 1994 and 2008. And now the state says we have to enact another corporate tax cut starting in 2014, that will take even more revenue out of the General Fund.