Pensions may cause budget problems
Published: Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Updated: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 20:08
Tyler Neumann
The Chico State registration portal is showing new scars − Chinese history, Middle-Eastern history, philosophy in social ethics and toxicology are all listed as “no sections available.”
This is a lasting product of the financial crisis and the 115 faculty members Chico State has lost since May 2009. Stopping the bleeding requires asking difficult questions, such as if the pensions of state employees and teachers are too generous?
When a university can no longer offer a sufficient ratio of teachers to students, large state employee benefits become a crippling liability to the California State University system. Since faculty and administration are paid by California, every penny used to provide a pension is a penny that can’t be used to provide a class.
There are two problems with California teachers’ pensions at the moment — one is rooted in the way pensions are