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If Klein was pushed out, why the seeming lack of planning for a replacement?  And why would Klein “panic” when he is old enough to simply retire, presumably had a federal pension coming, and could always practice law?

Makes no sense.  Basically, my view is that Klein was one of the few people NOT in on the 25/55 deal, and was balking at the fact that the schools will end up gutted to pay for it.  He didn’t want to be around to do the deed.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110519/INS/110519858

Meanwhile, as the UFT holds protests against “budget cuts,” they appear to be just daring Bloomberg to fess up and say the city’s school spending has been going up and is now higher than the average for the suburbs or New Jersey, but we decided to spend all the extra money on earlier retirement because that’s what the UFT wanted.  How about this:  “I raised property taxes 18 percent and cut other services for education, and got less than nothing in return.”

Doesn’t make him sound very good, now does it.  So he is mum.  Meanwhile, he blames the state for not providing more money even though the city’s share of state school aid is now higher than its share of public school children (a major, historic reversal) and despite his opposition to higher state taxes (with a state and local tax burden already about the highest in the country).  What does he expect, the state to print counterfit money?

And by the way, the second Governor Spitzer signed the 25/55 deal, the “lets work together to improve the schools” PR was gone from the UFT.  More like “give us even more money, with none of it going to new hires in cash pay, or the schools will get worse.”

Nice to see that Klein is as divisive at News Corp. as he was at the NYCDOE.

Also nice to see that it is partially through Klein’s efforts that News Corp. continues to try and quash the scandal, even from its own executives.

But the scandal is NOT going away, no matter what Joel Klein tries to do about it or how many education forums he hosts on the News Corp. dime.

The latest has the phone hacking crimes at TWO Murdoch news outlets (the now closed News of the World and the Sun),16 News Corp. employees arrested in the scandal, and more revelations coming by the week.

The most recent furor is that News Corp. tried to blackmail the lawyers of hacking victims by having them followed, then printing lies about them in Murdoch newspapers in order to get them to drop the hacking cases:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/07/news-world-investigator-spy-lawyers

The list of News Corp. crimes include phone hacking, computer hacking, spying, perjury, extortion, bribery, conspiracy to cover up a crime, and blackmail.

These are sleazy, sleazy people at News Corp. – criminal scum.  As MP Tom Watson said about the scandal”

“I think it shows an utterly relentless and ruthless organisation,
clearly highly politicised and who would stop at nothing to try and
cover this case up.”
 
Joel Klein fits right in there at the top.

But Mr. Klein had better watch out.

There are knives out for him within the News Corp. organization and you can bet if he engages in any criminal activity himself to cover this mess up, somebody will happily drop a dime on him.

“If NYC wasn’t spending as much as it does on testing, technology, fixing an aging infrastructure, and central administration, things wouldn’t be nearly as bad for education spending.”

Q:  How much does NYC spend on testing and technology?  Do you know?  Because I’d like to know. 

Q:  Are you arguing that NYC should spend *less* money “fixing an aging infrastructure”?
“NYC also spends vastly more money on special education which is much more expensive than general ed spending.”Q:  Are you arguing that NYC should spend less money on special education? 

“What really needs to be done is to renegotiate the entire aspect of the system that guarantees a nearly 8% return on the state pension system. That’s the part that has caused the problem, not the 25/55.”

Q:  Are you talking about the TRS’s annuity program?  Or are you talking about the NYC comptrollers’ fantasy projections that the fund will return 8% a year for the rest of time?  Whatever you’re talking about, do you have any evidence for the claim that “[t]hat’s the part that has caused the problem, not the 25/55″?

Frankly, although I find Larry generally persuasive on this stuff, I’ve never seen a thorough presentation showing the impact of 25/55 one way or the other.  I’m not sure how important it is, anyway.  The defined benefits are crushing services and it’s probably going to get worse because the pension funds are underfunded.  You think the New York Post is nasty now, wait until retirees are draining 25% of the education budget and class sizes are at 40.

25/55 is not an ongoing thing.  It was limited and you had to sign up for it years ago.  25/55 only helps a narrow band of people. These people had to be tier 4 (If you were the other tiers, you have too many years in the system for the 25/55 to work) and they will only collect 50% of average of last three years (no one year can be 10% more).  It isn’t worth it.  Many stick it out to 30 years where it is 60% and no penalty and they can start to collect (unless still under 55).

Most of the people who are paying in to 25/55 will not use it because they cannot afford to.  Many people did not pay into 25/55 because,as stated in a comment below, it doesn’t help them.  They start to young or too old.

Please note (many people seem to forget) that teachers have to pay in extra money for these years.  So, if you have many years left, you will be putting a lot of money in the system and you only get half back (if you don’t use it) which means you are taking money away from your TDA which you know you will be getting.  

Again, it only helped the people who had a few years left and this gets them out early.  It also brings in new teachers at lower salaries.

The new tiers (5 – don’t know if it kicked in and I don’t know if 6 ever went further than threatened) the people have to pay in for a much longer time (maybe their entire career).

In about 5 to 6 years, the big bump of retire costs will go down.  Ask Liu.  Tier One will be pretty much out of the schools and many will be dead (Also, many retired before there were some major salary increases so their pensions aren’t as big as some people would like to think.  The huge ones had to stay in the system a really long time.)  Also, they are dying and they will be dying out at a faster speed (sorry, morbid, but true).  The other pensions tiers are not as kind and people don’t collect as much.

 
Other Unions collect after 20 years, they don’t have to wait to collect and they are often much higher than teachers’ pensions, but SOME people don’t mention that.

NYC pays  about  8  Billion  dollars  out  of  a 66  Billion  dollar  budget  on  pensions.         (Yes  the  number  has  skyrocketed  the  past  10 year,  that  is  due  in  large  part  to  a  tremendous  number  of  Vietnam  era  teachers  retiring  in  the  late  90s,  and  early  part of  last  decade.   Teaching  was  a  way  to  avoid  the  Vietnam  draft,  and  there  were  a  large  number  of  older  “boomer  males”  who  became  public  school  teachers  in  the  late  1960s) …. That’s  about  12%  of  its  budget.  I  don’t  think  a  12%  expenditure,  much  of  which  is  put  back  into  the  economy  through  retiree  consumption  is  really  that  much.  If  you  don’t  offer  pensions..The  city  would  have  to  offer  higher  salaries  to  attract people  into  these  jobs.  These  higher  salaries  would  put  an  equally  large  strain  on  the  city  finances. 

Do  you really think  you  could  attract  police,  firefighters  and  teachers..with  starting  salaries  at  about  45K  if  you  didn’t  offer  them  the  pensions?….With  a  high turnover  rate  the  first  5  years,  the  city  doesn’t  have  to  give  those  employees  any  pension. It  has  therefore saved  money  with  the  lower  starting  salary. It  is  also  NOT  in  the  public  interest  to  have  cops,  firefighters,  and  teachers  working  into  their  60s  and  70s  because  they  can’t  retire.  In  the  case  of  police  and  firefighters..who  would  want  to  rely  on  a  60  year  old  to  chase  down  a  mugger, or   pull  them  out  of  a  burning  building?  That’s  NOT  “happening”  in  NYC.  It  is  the  same  with  teachers.  Most  people  in  their  late  fifties, or  sixties  just  don’t  have  the  energy  to  deal  with,  let  alone  educate  young  children,  and  teenagers  for  7  hours  every  day. 

The  labor  market  is  very  weak  right  now.   When  it  recovers  NYC  will  have  to  offer  pensions,  and  benefits  if  it  wants  to  attract  a  civil  service  workforce  of  any  quality  without  having  to  pay  astronomical  salaries…This  metropolitan  area  is  not  an  easy,  or  cheap  place  to  work,  or  live.

Hmm -That could explain why after resigning Nov 10,2010, 2 days later-Nov 12th -he shifted $1 BILLION dollars to SCA for 200 new Izone schools–yes $1 BILLION—hmmm maybe we didn’t need to layoff 672 aides and parent coordinators to save ???-$35 million—-

The pensions brothers Littlebrain and Flerpi just love to jump on the pension issue. It eats them up inside every time this come up but do they truly understand that all this happened years ago and when it happened people stayed in teaching not because of the salaries but the promise of a pension.Yes Lindsey gave away alot when he wanted to be president but all has changed and alot has been adjusted the last few years. May young teachers will burn out after five years and they will have contributed money to the pension funds and never take out a penny. When you listen to the gloom and doom brothers it seems as though people are stealing their pension money when in fact they earned every penny.Little field has a lot of nerve complaining about the earnings of others when he works in the banking industry. You know the guys who in the last twenty years had to be bailed out when they destroyed our economy.The other jerk Flerpi just loves to take the other side of every argument on G.S to get under everyone’s skin. He talks about leaving a small footprint but he can’t stay out of the education field. I guess there isn’t enough work being a lawyer so he needs to take in out on someone.
This article is about Bloomberg and Klein and how they screwed up each other not about Littlebrain and Flerpi and their obsession over teacher pensions. Two peas in a pod. Very little peas.

Larry was there. Either he was a fly on the wall or he’s Bloomberg butt buddy.

NYC pays  about  8  Billion  dollars  out  of  a 66  Billion  dollar  budget  on  pensions. . . . That’s  about  12%  of  its  budget.  I  don’t  think  a  12%  expenditure,  much  of  which  is  put  back  into  the  economy  through  retiree  consumption  is  really  that  much.

I don’t now what comparisons you have in mind when you conclude that 12% of  budgeted expenses is not “really that much.”  I think it’s enormous.  And that percentage is growing faster than any other costs except healthcare and possibly debt service.  None of that money goes to city services.  Also, because the city’s projections on contributions to the pension funds are based on 8% rates-of-return on investments, pension costs will rise even faster unless Wall Street enters a sustained bull market, which not many analysts expect to happen.  You’re also  talking only about pensions.  NYC has begun to spend more on retirees’ *benefits* than it spends on pension.  It was more than $9 billion in 2010.  The cost of pensions and retirement benefits is probably close to the total cost of salaries and wages for current city employees, which is a mindblowing statement.

As for the voodoo economics — while some of this money goes back into the local economy, none of it goes back into the city government, because it’s all exempt from local and state taxes.  So while we’re occupying Wall Street, let’s hope we can make up the difference through more egregiously high bonuses.

Do  you really think  you  could  attract  police,  firefighters  and  teachers..with  starting  salaries  at  about  45K  if  you  didn’t  offer  them  the  pensions?

Of course not.  You’d have to retain pensions, but make them less generous and require more contributions.  This would fuel the massive and growing wealth gap between the old and the young, and it probably wouldn’t do much to increase spending on actual education services (hiring more teachers, building more classrooms) in the near future, but it would at least help NYC start to turn the corner.  And yes, you’d have to raise salaries, but cost of those salaries would be cheaper than the city’s pension contribution savings.

Comparisons with the entire budget are not relevant, because much it is for social services that is paid for mostly by the federal government and merely passes through the city’s hands.  Medicaid for example.

The right measure is what share of our education spending, now way above average, goes to the retired and what share to those working.   We are up to around 40% of payroll for pension contributions, and it isn’t enough.

Some part of that might have been inadequate taxpayer contributions, but Census Bureau data shows NYC taxpayers kicking in more as a share of payroll than just about anyone else over the past 30 years.  So the real reason is all the retroactive pension enhancements, put together.  My estimate is the original, unenhanced 30/62 pension would have cost the city 8.8% of payroll, if everyone worked just 30 years and retired immediately at 62, with a modest 5.8% rate of return assumed (vs. 9.3% over the past 30 years according to Liu).

What is amazing is here New Yorkers have agreed to pay higher taxes (Bloomberg’s 18% property tax increase of education) for better education and what we get instead is pension contributions at 40%-plus of payroll.  And people here feel insulted, and say personally nasty things, if anyone dares to bring it up!

That’s how things end up this way at the UFT.  I’m well aware 90% of teachers aren’t that way.  But those who are the ones actually represented.

Some part of that might have been inadequate taxpayer contributions

Of course, unions love under-funding.  When  taxpayer contributions are relatively low, taxpayers tend not to notice the expense.  When they finally do notice, it’s too late because the benefits are locked in.  It’s the legislative equivalent of insider trading.  

Way to keep it classy.