In the midst of a teachers’ union protest for higher taxes the other day, we handed out a list of 585 Fullerton teachers and administrators who make over $90,000. Our camera captured their reaction:
This afternoon the teachers’ union will be at it again, this time on Harbor Blvd. in Downtown Fullerton. John and Ken will be there too, and so will FFFF.
I also heard that the teachers’ unions are planning some kind of “surprise” in response to the conservative radio duo. Come on down, it might be fun.
I may agree that some administrators make more money that would seem reasonable.
Of course 80% of the education budget goes to pay salaries, I am surprised it is not higher, teachers do not manufacture anything and only require limited books, computers and other supplies, we are hiring thier expertise to teach our children
Even if every teacher made $ 90,000 which includes by your figures health insurance costs, tax costs, pension costs everything the district pays out for that person, not what the person receives. why is that to much? BTW- Public employess do not get Social Security in addition to thier pension.
Teachers go to many years of college, have in many cases large debts to repay for the cost of the education they received and make much less than other who go into other professions that incur similar costs.
At my private sector job I take home $16,800 after taxes, co-pays for insurance etc.
What does that cost my employer. After they pay the additional payroll tax, health insurance and housing allowance I get, plus other workmans comp the total cost is over $32,000.00 to my employer.
So about up to half of your supposted over payment goes to taxes to the Local State and Federal government and costs of insurance, pension co-pays, workman comp etc.
Many of you who are complaining make much more than most of the teachers and public employees you are going after, you make enought to buy a home, perhaps more graditutude for what you already have rather than trying to take more for those who are working for you for less that you would ever consider working for would be something to think about.
“At my private sector job I take home $16,800 after taxes, co-pays for insurance etc….. and the total cost is over $32,000.00 to my employer.”…….. Hmmmm
How can you buy a hose if you can’t possibly qualify for any loan?
So it is a OK with you to pay about 50% taxes?…. and to pay even more for teachers?
FYI, your employer or corporations do not pay any taxes! You and consumers pay all.
Jim your entire comment is such a crapola that I do not want to even logically consider it for any debate.
No my point was that at even 90 k of total compensation, that a person would only take home 45 or 50 k after taxes insurance etc.
While I know I cannot buy a home here, neither could most teachers, even at 90k with a take home pay of 4,000 a month it would be very difficult, a 450,000 K house would take up $2,200 of that, add your property taxes, insurance, food, clothes plus try to repay your loans for 8 plus years of school, it likely adds up to more than you take home.
I think a teacher should be able to purchase a home where they teach and be able to at least pay for that and repay the loans they had to take out to qualify to teach.
Bottom line is that teachers are not overpayed, quite often they are underpayed.
In what other profession where one has to go to school and incurr large depts to pay for your education do you on average work for 50 k or less per year.
How many lawyers would work 50 K or Dcotors, business managers ? What other profession requires this much schooling and results in such low pay?
“No my point was that at even 90 k of total compensation, that a person would only take home 45 or 50 k after taxes insurance etc”……… Hmmm
50K > your 16K…….. So if they get increase
it will be
60K > your 15K…….. don’t you feel angry
I do not know what is your point.
You should be concern about how to restore economy to the point like 30 40 years ago when every working person could buy home car and food.
Teachers increase will not accomplish that!
It will do the opposite.
So why do you want to even consider that.
AND PLEASE NEVER COUNT YOUR TAKE HOME PAY AS A PAY, IT IS ALWAYS THE GROSS SINCE WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT DEDUCTIONS.
No one is increasing pay in this enviroment. The teachers are advocating that the current tax rates be extended so that the number of teachers that will be laid off or not replaced is lower that it will be otherwise.
Class sizes of 50 students or more are not managable, which many districts will have to do if funding is reduced by another 20 or 30 % which is the minumin additional cut that will be needed to balance the state budget. Education is required to get around 45 % of the revenue that coming in to the state.
AND PLEASE NEVER COUNT YOUR TAKE HOME PAY AS A PAY, IT IS ALWAYS THE GROSS SINCE WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT DEDUCTIONS.
I agree, which was my point that the cost of employing a teacher does match their take home pay. My Gross pay does not equal what I have to spend either, which is why I used it as an example
Teachers do however educate our workforce and without an educated workforce there is no hope of us getting out of this economy to the point like 30 40 years ago when every working person could buy home car and food.
We do not produce things that make the country wealth and what wealth there is, is increasingly held by a smaller percentage of the people. We are fighting over a shrinking pool of recourses.
An educated workforce is the most important thing we can invest in to break this cycle. Secondly we must increase the production of energy produced in this country with a long term focus of moving to a non-oil dependant status, by increased investment in re-newable energy Shorter term we must increase domestic production of oil and natural gas to get us there.
This does nothing to address the fact that many of these same teachers and educators that are making $90K+ will be earning lifetime pensions giving them a high percentage of that income for life – and, unlike the private sector, NONE of that $90K pre-retirement salary has to be set aside for that pension. The average private side employer puts aside about 5% of salary for employee retirement whereas it is about 100% on the public side.
calif teachers are the either the highest or 2nd highest in the union . if they would take a 10% pay cut they would still be 1 or 2 these people want us to pay more txs HELL NO .
“The teachers are advocating that the current tax rates be extended so that the number of teachers that will be laid off or not replaced is lower that it will be otherwise.”………. Hmmmm
Do you understand your statement?…… That is a tax increase!
The IQ test:
If you have car payment for 3 years and in the end of 3 years the bank will ask you to extend your car payments another 3 years in same amount:
a) Would your car cost you same?
b) Would there be any change in your car payments?
c) Would there be any change to your living standard?
d) Would you prefer to stop your payments as originally agreed?
Please answer.
The IQ test:
If you have car payment for 3 years and in the end of 3 years the bank will ask you to extend your car payments another 3 years in same amount:
a) Would your car cost you same? No
b) Would there be any change in your car payments? No
c) Would there be any change to your living standard? No
d) Would you prefer to stop your payments as originally agreed? Yes
But teachers are not cars.
Most teacher pensions are much lower that that many get less than they would on Social Security,which they cannot get.
If one would want to address the pension situation where a person recieves 2 government pensions or if one would want to put a cap on the total amount per year of a pension adjusted for inflation at say 50 or 60 k that would address those who are able to game the current system. Including pensions for administrators etc,
But NO we want to use the pension issue so one can take away the remaining union rights and reduce everyone to minium wage and 60 plus hours a week, unless of course you are a Administrator, Lawyer or have some office in business that give you a big salary 250k plus and pension.
Back 20 or 30 years ago when everyday people could buy homes and work only one job to get along. Guess what!!!
We were going through a period of time when unions had the most power both in the private sector and public sector in our history. Everybody was doing better year to year becuase we made things here and we worked together.
Unions helped lift everyone out of poverty, because workers had money to spend on products made here.
Want a good recovery, support unions and buy American
Yes unions, that great positive factor that destroyed the American steel industry, the American automotive industry and airline industry and is now bringing fiscal irresponsibility to a bankrupt government near you.
See there you go, that’s your religion – all unions are bad. It was only a month ago you were saying “I’m only against public employees being unionized,” and I called you out as disingenuous – that’s what all Republicans are saying nowadays because the public employees unions are the only ones left that haven’t been decimated.
Uhh, no, that’s not what I said (and my post was only one sentence so it seems difficult to see how you could so badly misinterpret so few words). In the middle of the 19th century when there was no counterforce to ownership, unions played an important role in establishing worker rights and working conditions. Unfortunately the success of SOME unions caused them to become so overzealous they destroyed the profitability of their own industry in America (examples given above). Without the counterbalance of profitability to hold them in check, public unions are universally overreaching and placing unreasonable demands on taxpayers who must fund public union greed.
I think that it goes without saying that both double dipping (retiring and then taking a pension and being rehired privately for the same job basically doubling your pay) and double retirment (given the ridiculously early retirement age you can actually earn two seperate pensions) should be ended forthwith. I don’t know where you are getting your information but under CalSTRS (the teacher pension program) you generally get the average of three of your last five years when you have had the job for twenty years (simplification and I am sure Annonster will quickly jump in and correct me) – the point is this is MANY multiples of what someone would get for social security. In addition, there are frequently “golden parachutes” for teachers that pay them significant multi year bonuses for retiring.
The housing problem is a function of the fact that this is a good place to live and to get into this market people started to have to work two jobs because housing prices went up by market forces – its not like housing prices and affordability are a problem in Des Moines or Fargo – that is completely unrelated to the diminishment of the “working wage” of union employees.
Jim Benson,
You have to take EVERYTHING that Geoff Willis writes with a HUGE grain-of-salt, being factual isn’t his strong suit.
For ex.;
“This does nothing to address the fact that many of these same teachers and educators that are making $90K+ will be earning lifetime pensions giving them a high percentage of that income for life – and, unlike the private sector, NONE of that $90K pre-retirement salary has to be set aside for that pension. The average private side employer puts aside about 5% of salary for employee retirement whereas it is about 100% on the public side.”
FromThoughts on Public Education;
CalSTRS is not in crisis; do not begrudge the teacher’s pension that I earned
By Dana Dillon
Most CalSTRS members do not retire into a life of luxury. Ours is a modest pension, secured over nearly three decades of service. The median CalSTRS pension replaces about 60 percent of our working income. Unlike most workers, teachers in California do not earn any Social Security benefits for their classroom service. As such, the CalSTRS pension represents the only source of reliable monthly income a retired teacher receives. Moreover, most public school educators in the state retire without employer-sponsored health care after age 65.
Nor is it a taxpayer giveaway. Over the life of their careers, CalSTRS members contribute 8 percent of their monthly pay to help finance their retirement. Employers kick in another 8.25 percent of monthly pay (75 percent of which is offset by not having to pay Social Security taxes), the state contributes a little more than 2 percent, and the returns garnered by CalSTRS investments do the rest. These taxpayer contributions represented less than 28 percent of the resources used in the past 15 years to pay benefits.
In the past decade, the financial health of public pension funds, including CalSTRS, has been undermined by the dot-com bust and global recession. However, our situation is not as dire as many would have you think. As of June 2009, CalSTRS benefits were 78 percent funded and the system had sufficient assets and projected contributions to pay benefits until 2044.
Public pension funds like CalSTRS are not in crisis. Our long-term rate investment return of 8.2 percent for the past 20 years exceeds our assumptions. Our benefits are paid for and funded over decades.
“But teachers are not cars.”……….. Hmmmm
Your IQ = 50;
50 is better that zero I guess.
Hey I do happen to own a house in Ohio. I cannot afford to live there. There are no jobs where my house is 25 % offical unemployment.
The City manager there gets 45,000 a year, the teachers get about 25,000. The whole school district and city run on less that the Bell City council was making.
Yes some unions went overboard, no doubt. Where I could live if I could only afford to make enought to eat, pay the utlilties and taxes, there are no unions left. They have been gone for about ten years.
Top wage there is usually about what the city manager at 45 k, most people get part time work at federal minumin wage or under the table work at 2 to 5 dollars per hour.
The house that was worth about 125k about 10 years ago is maybe worth half of that if you could find anyone to buy it.
Best occupation for a unskilled worker, the Walmart the next town over at least they give most of the employees 40 hours a week at about $ 8 an hour.
When the unions all left the area, the wages all went to the minumun allowed by federal law or less.
Many of the younger single men get hooked up with a woman with a few babies and live off the child support.
Perhaps I will be able to retire there if my Social Security will cover the heating costs in the winter.
Most people who do not already own a home, there cannot afford the many 20 or 30 k house there that are available on most any street. Of the 300 Plus for sale there last year 19 where sold.
I need something more intellectually scrutable than a green piece of paper lacking nuance being passed out. It may be enough for the likes of Jon and Ken, but not me.