THIS IS AWFUL!!
One of our Association’s goals this session is reducing the second major budget hit on K-12 education, proposed by Gov. Hickenlooper at $500 per student ($332M). For a time this week, it appeared that this massive school funding cut would be reduced somewhat by the state’s discovery of an extra $75M in revenue.
A reduction in the cut is a positive step, showing that lawmakers understand how devastating a $500 per student loss would be in our classrooms and in the programs that make a real difference in children’s education.
However, House Republicans threaten to destroy budget cut compromises that Sen. Brandon Shaffer (D-Longmont) has been working on – because they insist on gouging public employees by further amending SB 76, the PERA cost-shift bill.
Rep. Frank McNulty (R-Highlands Ranch), Speaker of the House, refuses to back budget cut reductions that will help our students unless SB 76 is amended to give school boards the ability to shift 4.5% of their PERA employer contributions onto employees’ backs.
We oppose SB 76 and are fighting all attempts to force employees to reduce their take-home pay by paying more into PERA. The Legislature did the right thing in passing Senate Bill 1 last year, the comprehensive PERA reform package – hard choices and shared sacrifice that now have PERA on track to eliminate its unfunded liability and avoid the dire scenarios happening in other states.
SB 76, which the PERA Board opposes, harms the retirement plan’s actuarial funding because some employees leave school employment and withdraw their contributions along with a 50% match, while employer contributions remain in the trust fund where they are more valuable for funding PERA than employee contributions. SB 76 is estimated to be an actuarial loss to PERA of millions of dollars in just one year.
SB 76 is currently a 2.5% cut in take-home pay that harms employees and undercuts PERA’s fiscal future. We oppose the bill as amended. AND WE WILL OPPOSE IT when the House State Affairs Committee amends it April 7 to make the take-home pay cut even bigger at 4.5%.
Email the House State Affairs Committee, using this link: http://capitolcontact.com/layout3.php?url=419-Tv8JlrNDbwVxHcWs. Your message will automatically be sent to all members of the Committee. You may add your State Representative, if you wish.
REMINDER: RALLY WITH YOUR FRIENDS – Monday, April 4
Stand up for Public Employees! Monday, April 4, City Park, Denver, We Are One.
PLUS: CEA T-shirts will be at the park for our members. Stop by the Martin Luther King statue and pick up a nice blue t-shirt for free. Linda Barker will get your name and local association and give you a T-shirt.
PARKING: Come in a car pool. Park at East High School, just South of City Park. Marshalls will help guide you to the location.
