Lol! Did your math teacher talk on the phone a lot too? :)
Just kidding.
LOL.. As a matter of fact, my high school math teachers s@#%^d.
The article erroneously referred to a 120 day work year and I used that figure. Funny, they get paid based upon one definition of a year, but get penalized based upon a different definition.
The real problem for taxpayers is that the teachers have defined benefit pension plans, rather than the 401k thrift savings type that most people have. Most people, the investment losses in the pension funds resulted in a reduction in their retirement value. But not the teachers. It just means that the taxpayers must increase their contributions to the teachers pensions to provide the same retirement benefit as before.
The problem is, that the investment losses caused an average increased pension contribution for 2009 and future years of 26% of total salaries for Pennsylvania school districts based upon acturarial computations. That is such a huge increase that every school district in Pennsylvania would have been bankrupt if our Gov Ed Rendel had not taken 50% of our stimulus monies from Obummer and gave it to the teachers pensions. What a crook. I think it was $8 billion.
This was a one time stimulus contribution. Per the Gov’s own words to my ears during a meeting last month, our state’s flat tax rate of 3.07% would have to increase to 8% to make up the shortfall in the near future! The sheeple have no idea what is coming. It is a lot harder for Gov’ts to downsize than it is for businesses. Watch for all hell to break lose in the future as this hits the fan.