CalSTRS reported ready to seek more state funding Share By Dale Kasler
By Dale Kasler The Sacramento Bee
Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011 For more than two years, CalSTRS has been talking about asking state lawmakers for more money to plug its funding gap.
Now the teachers' pension fund believes the Legislature is ready to listen.
Pension fund Chief Executive Jack Ehnes said last week he wants Gov. Jerry Brown to include additional CalSTRS funding in a long-awaited pension reform proposal he's expected to release in the coming weeks.
"We think we're at the right moment where it's time to move on the funding strategy politically," Ehnes said at a CalSTRS board meeting in Huntington Beach, according to Bloomberg news.
Ehnes' comments represent a subtle shift in the California State Teachers' Retirement System's efforts to tackle an estimated $56 billion long-term funding shortfall.
In a time of tight budgets and waning sympathy for public employees, CalSTRS has resisted proposing actual legislation to raise contribution rates from employers. Instead, it's spent the past two and a half years lobbying lawmakers, the Governor's Office and school districts.
CalSTRS thinks its education campaign is paying off – and lawmakers might be amenable to increasing contributions for teachers' pensions.
"This may be the time that this issue gets resolved," said Deputy CEO Ed Derman in an interview Monday. Lawmakers "recognize the problem," he added.
Derman noted that Brown urged the Legislature last spring to deal with CalSTRS' funding issues, although he didn't lay out a specific plan. It's unclear whether Brown will include a funding plan for CalSTRS in his pending pension reform proposal. A spokesman for the governor declined to comment.
CalSTRS gets around $6 billion a year combined from the state, school districts and teachers. Unlike CalPERS, the teachers' pension fund can't raise employer contribution rates without legislative approval.
Many of CalSTRS' financial troubles stem from the financial crash of 2008. In August, State Auditor Elaine Howle added CalSTRS to her list of "high-risk" issues confronting the state.
“go without” Good Lord, what a bunch of liars. These jackasses are money eaters supreme . . . and all they turn out is crap.
More union extortion from the liberal academia capital of the Left Coast. These filthy thugs are at it again — as if they ever quit.
And some ignorant citizens of California think that the state has always been at the bottom of the academic ladder for ever — not so. Thirty plus years ago it was at the top. Unions were reasonalble, it was not a liberal state, the legislature was also conservative — and this was the model state of the nation.
Now look at what the libs have done to it and now the “friends of California government” are hanging out with the anti-American mobs. Is it not a pretty site — well, the liberal citizens of California (those that are libs) are getting exactly what they voted for in the last election — a destroyed state and bands of robbers, thieves, crooks, losers, you name it. Everything but what made California once great.
Ain’t it a pretty site ????
The eggheads should be more concerned with businesses leaving California. That’s where the revenue comes from.
And in this loony left coast, the Sacramento Bee delivered an insert in today’s paper titled “A Guide to Local Services: Medical Cannbis”.
But then, CA is also the state where illegals march in open view of the feds (immigration policy: see no illegal, hear no illegal, speak that no one is illegal) and demand to be legalized.
If the teachers are busy being “occupiers” - then who’s teaching the kids?
It isn’t time for a school break.
Shouldn’t they be in the classroom teaching??
(of course, the kids in California would probably be better off if their teachers were out “occupying” whatever)
Are these the same teachers that are pitching tents for their students?
I’m a “forced” member of CTA, and I DO NOT SUPPORT their liberal positions. I’m forced to join this union because, if I don’t, they will take the money from my paycheck anyway (closed shop). These cretins do not represent me and my views. They do not have the first clue about the economy, other than what their liberal politician masters tell them.
This whole Occupy BS is being run from DNC Headquarters with the help of their Union pals.
“Educators are fed up with watching our students and schools go without
Ron Paul want to audit the Fed.
I have long wished to see an audit of what schools in CA. receive in money.
Between State and Fed. money they also get funds from the State Lottery.
I’d be willing to get the average person would be stunned to discover what the schools truly rake in.
This is the greedy parasitical public sector versus the private sector which produces real goods and services. Ranchers raising cattle and a farmer growing wheat are producers. We don’t need 12-k teachers who are brainwashing students in leftism and pro-homosexual agendas which is not all but a sizable amount. At a recent Democrat convention was reported the largest contingent there was public employee teachers. They were 24% of all representatives. Teaching is a haven for socialists these days. East money just go ask Bill Ayers