MSTA, MACo, O’Malley say no to rollback on pension costs

MSTA and the Maryland Association of Counties (MACo) responded to renewed discussion of passing on some of the costs of educators' pensions to the counties with a letter to the editor excerpted in the Baltimore Sun. Governor O'Malley recently said he is not inclined to shifting the pension responsibility to the counties. Read the letter in its entirety below:

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Don’t shortchange education

By Clara Floyd, MSTA President, and Jim Smith, President, Maryland Association of
Counties(MACo) and Baltimore County Executive

The Baltimore Sun's call for permanently freezing teacher pension payments at next year's levels and transferring the State’s responsibility for future pension increases to local government (“Teacher pension pinch,” Sept. 24) would shortchange education in Maryland. Such a move would inflict irreversible long-term harm on our students, schools and economy.

Maryland has made real progress raising student achievement thanks to a partnership between state and local governments to invest in our public schools and prepare our students for a 21st century economy. The state provided historic levels of school funding under the Thornton plan, which has been dedicated to reducing class sizes and directing more resources to the classroom. It raised our teachers’ pension to a more competitive level, which is also helping school districts recruit and retain high-quality teachers.

Over the past year, the Maryland State Teachers Association and Maryland Association of Counties have backed Governor O'Malley and legislators in their efforts to balance the state budget and to erase the state's long-term imbalance between revenues and spending, while continuing our investments in education and other vital priorities. We reluctantly accepted unexpected changes to the Thornton funding formula – changes that are already resulting in reduced anticipated funding to schools – and we support the November slots referendum as an essential step in generating the stable long-term revenue needed to provide all our students with a high-quality pre-K-12 education.

Transferring the burden of paying for pension costs to local governments would place unanticipated budgetary responsibility and undue pressure on them at a time when resources have become more limited. Cuts to local government budgets would put education funding at severe risk.

Governor O'Malley has said that he does not believe that the responsibility for funding teacher pensions should be transferred to local government. We agree and believe we can work together as partners to address education needs during this downturn rather than permanently damaging Maryland's children and Maryland’s economic future.