Discipline for Certificate Holders:  The State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) is considering extensive changes in the procedures for enforcing disciplinary rules affecting the education profession.  On June 4 TFT will take part in a "stakeholder" meeting on pending proposals, which are billed by the agency staff as efforts to "streamline" the process.  We're all for quicker disposition of disciplinary cases by SBEC, but TFT will work to make sure that what the agency calls streamlining does not signify an erosion of due process.  Expect a further report next week.

 

New Pay and Pension Legislation--A Guide for the Perplexed:  In recent hotlines we have tried to explain the uncertainties built into new pay and benefit legislation just passed by the state legislature last weekend.  The murky legislation has left a lot of you wondering what actually was passed, and you're not alone.  Major newspapers have been confused, too, and have incorrectly reported, for example, that the legislature passed an across-the-board teacher pay raise of $425 a year.  Other reports have quoted legislators who are touting the passage of a 13th check for retirees, without noting that the 13th check is not automatic.  So let us set the record straight.

 

The alleged pay raise in HB 1, the budget for 2008-2009, is not a guaranteed, across-the-board pay raise of $425 for every teacher (nor for every counselor, school nurse, and librarian).  The money is going to flow to school districts through state funding formulas and is labeled as money for "educator salary increases."  Districts are free to allocate the money unequally among educators (who also include administrators, by the way).  Districts actually are free to do pretty much as they please with the money, so long as they report what they do with it to the state.  The bottom line: Nobody should necessarily count on receiving the slight $35.42 gross monthly increase (less than $25 after taxes and deductions) that would be delivered if the dollars were distributed evenly across the board.  The use of these funds will be decided locally, and it is up to educators to make the case district by district for using this money to give across-the-board raises.

 

Meanwhile, the 13th check for retired school employees also is not guaranteed, though there's a decent chance it will be delivered.  Thanks to the stubborn resistance of Sen. Robert Duncan, Republican of Lubbock, along with legislative leaders, the new legislation (SB 1846) does not provide enough of a state increase to guarantee a 13th check for TRS retirees.  The bill caps the state contribution rate at 6.58 percent, and it requires TRS to decide later this year whether a 13th check can be issued based on two possible scenarios.

 

First, after the annual actuarial valuation of the TRS pension fund, TRS must gauge whether there's enough extra money in the fund to pay the 13th check.  If there is, then the 13th check will be issued in September.  If there's not, then TRS is authorized to raise the contribution rate of active employees as high as 6.58 percent to provide the extra funds needed.  (The current employee contribution is 6.4 percent of each paycheck.)  However, if even after raising the active employees' contribution rate to 6.58 percent there would still not be enough extra money in the fund, then TRS would not be allowed to issue the 13th check.

 

So what's the bottom line on that 13th check?  Given the past investment gains that have yet to be taken into account by TRS actuaries, the outlook is good for a favorable actuarial valuation at the end of August.  So TRS retirees have a good chance of seeing a 13th check this coming September.  But it's not legally guaranteed.  And for that the legislature ought to be ashamed, considering that the state, sitting on a record-high budget surplus, could easily have afforded the modest extra contribution to make it a sure thing.   

 

A final footnote: While the legislature gave teachers at best a state pay raise of less than 1 percent (if they see the $425 at all) and gave retirees at best a temporary boost equaling 8.33 percent for one year only, lawmakers gave the governor a 30-percent raise, to $150,000 from the current $115,345.  (But then that's nothing compared to the chief investment officer at TRS, who pulls down $402,000 a year in base pay, plus incentives that can raise the total to $700,000.)