Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Cuomo Attacks Teacher Pensions In Second Inauguration Speech

Governor Cuomo minutes ago:



Notice nothing about cop pensions, state worker pensions, etc.

Just teacher pensions.

This guy REALLY doesn't like teachers, does he?

Teachers union leaders, you plan on responding?

Especially since the governor has systematically underfunded school districts around the state even as the State Education Department and the Board of Regents throw more and more mandates on them.

It's true that Albany doesn't care enough about the future of students, but it has nothing to do with teacher pensions.

It starts with the way funding goes and continues with the way the state pursues a top-down, authoritarian public education agenda.

If Cuomo, the Regents, and the New York State Education Department did care about students, they'd listen to the complaints of parents over Common Core and the Endless Testing regime the state is pursuing.

Somehow that fact didn't make Cuomo's fantastical inauguration speech tonight.

Instead the attack on teachers and their pensions did.

18 comments:

  1. Because unlike the other unions, the leaders of the UFT are with Cuomo in his attack of teachers pensions. Mulgrew enabled Cuomo with the 7% TDA fixed annuity. Everyone else has
    8.25%. Cuomo's war on teachers is focused on breaking their pensions. Everything he says and does is an attack on teacher pensions, not about improving education. He is obsessed with teachers' pensions because he has the complete loyalty and cooperation from Mulgrew and Weingarten.

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    1. I understand that it is more difficult to change the pension structure through legislation - and maybe that is protection enough for now. But, back to the 7% fixed TDA. I know we had to to take a cut from 8.25 in 2009. I have read that other unions [or retirees?] did not take that cut. How sustainable and protected is our 7% fixed TDA at this point? What info do we have on this at this time? Seems easier to take this benefit away than to break the pension system. But, since we self-fund the TDA accounts, how would this save money or be politically useful for Cuomo and his ilk, except to harm teacher unions? Does the state or city subsidize the 7% fixed TDA fund? Does the state legislature decide? TDA has a managing board - is it a straw man? Could it be disputed in court?

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  2. Why do we pay dues to the UFT?

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    1. And to pay for her personal valet that travels with her everywhere.

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  3. What type of pension does Cuomo get?

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  4. Our dumb ass colleagues voted for the 7% because they wanted the two days before Labor Day back.
    Keep your eye on the doughnut and not on the hole.

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    1. I complained to Mulgrew when he was VP about those two days and he told me I should just call in sick every year.

      Thanks, Mikey...

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  5. Yes, he/they really do hate teachers.

    But, deep breath, neither Cuomo nor the Legislature can change one city pension plan without changing all of them--in terms of benefit contributions, vesting and retirement calculations. Nor do I believe they can change the requirements for NYSTRS and NYSLERS at the state level, separately.

    Wonderful, actually hideous, rhetoric but no substance to a separate attack on teachers. A joint attack on all public sector plans is surely coming--expect Tiers VII-XII in rapid succession leaving behind the shells of defined benefit plans and replacing them with the equivalent of public sector 401ks.

    If you're 25 and become a teacher anytime during the next ten years, do not count on receiving a defined benefit pension when you retire. One more reason for young people to run for the hills rather than become a teacher.

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    1. I agree, Harris, they wouldn't be able to make changes to just teacher pensions. It was really more about the hatred and animosity the man's got for teachers. Yesterday, "Perv Teachers," today teacher pensions. Is there any button he won't push to turn the public against teachers?

      As for the future, it will be interesting to see what happens if and when the economy really turns around. Job numbers were good all last year (we'll see if that follows tomorrow when the December numbers are released.) As the economy improves, teachers retire (or get fired, if Tisch and Cuomo have their way), fewer young people will go into teaching - there just may be, as Chaz posted the other day, a teacher shortage.

      And why wouldn't there be? Who goes into a career where you get bashed in the media on a daily basis, micromanaged from Albany, and evaluated using the performance of somebody else via a mechanism with a margin of error larger than Andrew Cuomo's ego?

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  6. Next year there can be a constitutional convention. At that point the pensions and retirement plans can be opened and destroyed.

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    1. Nahh - Cuomo doesn't have the political muscle for that. Give him another year, he'll have even less muscle to ram through stuff then he does now. The Assembly Dems hate him, there are quite a few Repubs who don't want to work with him either, he can't seem to replace anybody who leaves his administration (it's 16 political figures and counting now that they're down) - Cuomo's going to have his hands full pushing through the reform agenda he detailed before today - he's not going to be able to go at pensions.

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  7. Alas, only too believable. He trotted out the "Perv" meme yesterday, today it's the pension attack.

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  8. Every time Cuomo says something about teachers an angel loses his wings.

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    1. Hard to imagine the father attacking teachers' pensions in an inauguration speech the way Andrew did, that's for sure.

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  9. It is sufficient to keep hammering away at tenure protections to ensure that far fewer teachers collect sizeable pensions. In Newark, they are bringing teachers up on tenure charges for two years of partially effective ratings. Veteran teachers are being targeted.
    When the teaching force becomes a revolving door of temporary novices, the problem will be largely resolved.

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