By: Allen J. Schuler, KRTA legislative volunteer
So, your car stops running. You have it towed to the nearest service station where the mechanic insists he must remove and rebuild the engine. You HAVE to have an operating car in order to get to work. At great expense—to you—the engine is overhauled and reinstalled, yet the car still won’t run. “I don’t understand,” you say to the service guy. The mechanic responds, “We wanted to fix your transportation crisis immediately, so we rebuilt the engine. But, we never put any gas in the tank.” After a long silence, you ask, “You didn’t? Hey, I trusted you to know what you were doing!” Sure enough: the problem was not the engine, but that the gas tank was empty. The car didn’t need a rebuilt engine. It needed gas, a far less costly solution to the problem.
Only someone not firing on all cylinders—or wanting to take your money in a completely unethical manner—would recommend rebuilding a car’s engine as the first option for correcting a non-running vehicle. One has to wonder, then, exactly how many cylinders our General Assembly members have firing, for, in essence, that is the way they’ve handled TRS pension “reform” so far. They want to rebuild the engine when what’s necessary to make the “car” run is funding the “gas” it needs to operate. When it’s funded, TRS runs just fine.
Recall a year ago when the Governor proclaimed he’d call a special legislative session in order to handle the state’s pension crisis AND the state’s need for tax reform. He even admitted that tax reform wouldn’t—couldn’t—be “revenue neutral.” After all, everyone, including our legislators, knows that the state has been on a “Slim Fast” tax diet for decades which has generated budgets so anemic that many essential government functions are on the verge of collapse.
Combining the issues—tax reform and pension reform—made sense, given that the essential cause of the pension crisis has been underfunding. Unfortunately, “making sense” didn’t last long as a legislative proposition. Somehow, logic gave way to the illogical, and our political leaders nonsensically decided that pension “reform” had to come first, sans new revenue. “We have to know exactly how much we owe,” was the claim for concentrating solely on pension “reform.” So, we fiddled with figures: $36 billion; $43; $46; $64; $84. All in billions. These numbers weren’t necessarily “data driven;” they depended on legerdemain and how high those in charge wanted to fan the flames of “CRISIS!” Admittedly, none of the figures were good. They still aren’t. So, our pols went to work. In secret.
This past October, the Governor released his “keeping the promise” draft bill for pension “reform.” Given the number of promises unkept, it was quickly kicked to the curb by hordes of unhappy state workers and teachers. Back to the drawing board our legislative leaders went. For months, they huddled in secret—once again—hashing out a new, supposedly less evil “reform” bill, SB 1, which, they insisted, didn’t “kick the can down the road,” but tackled the problem of the pension crisis head on … by, um, kicking teachers down the road instead. Not surprisingly, angry hordes once again flooded legislative phone lines and email in-boxes in opposition; they also showed up en masse at committee meetings carrying signs instead of pitchforks and torches (for the moment). And, they were vocal. Very.
They provided strong “pushback” to a bill that wasn’t expected to receive much opposition. They have been numerous, persistent, and vocal in protest. Chants like “find funding first” and “vote them out” have rung throughout the corridors and committee rooms of the Capitol Annex building. These actions have had an effect. Our legislators, sensitive souls that they are, have begun to get angry themselves at all of these pestilential teachers saying mean things. “It’s not fair!” some assert. “We weren’t the General Assemblies that kicked the can down the road. It was those other guys, the one who aren’t here anymore, who did that! Don’t teachers understand that this is a CRISIS? Dad-gummit, didn’t the Governor’s budget fully fund their gosh-dern pension system this budget cycle? They should be grateful, not vilifying us!”
Well, let’s be fair. We really shouldn’t blame these legislators for the how the pension crisis “can” was “kicked” down the road for so long, should we? I mean, doing that would be like blaming teachers for not raising kids to proficient levels of learning when so many children come from environments beset by poverty, violence, drugs and numerous other societal ills. We wouldn’t do that, would we? So, let’s not blame these legislators for the sins they can’t control. No, let’s blame them for what they can control: their unwillingness to do the work necessary to provide the “gas” the state’s budget truly needs by not having the political will to undertake the modernization of Kentucky’s tax code.
Instead, our lawmakers are angry. At us. You know, for being non-compliant to their will. Don’t believe they’re upset with us? Read this observation made by an active teacher, Catherin Cornwell, a science teacher from Allen County, who was distraught enough by the teacher-punitive nature of SB 1 and the budget’s withholding of the state’s share of our Shared Responsibility health care that she came to Frankfort in person. As she wrote, “As one member of the House approached me I could hear him loudly saying, ‘I am not worried about teachers; I am worried about students!’ I said, ‘And, we teach those students.’ And he said, ‘Well, not very well!’ By that time, he had gone several steps past me, and I was too shocked at his rudeness to reply. Another legislator later snidely remarked that he was ‘pretty sure today is a school day,’ as he walked past. If their remarks were meant to be hurtful … mission accomplished.”
However, our mission has not been accomplished. Yes, SB 1 didn’t receive a full vote in the Senate and was sent back to committee for additional fine-tuning. Don’t think for a minute, though, that our political leaders are done with us. Between the provisions in SB 1 and the number of things in—and out—of the budget bill, there’s plenty in both to hurt teachers — retired, active, and the yet-to-be-hired as well as to do significant damage to public education in this state for years to come. And our representatives are angry with us? They don’t understand why we don’t understand the crisis they’re “fixing”? Well, here’s one good, though not the only, explanation for teachers’ ire, overheard in the Capitol Annex’s crowded hallway: “It’s like they’re attacking us. Not so much the state workers. Just us!” Is it so hard to believe that people who feel they’re under attack get angry about it, particularly when the attack is real? Do legislators lack imagination?
Bottom line: the TRS pension “engine” does not need to be “rebuilt.” It needs the “gas” necessary to make it go. If those in our service insist on “overhauling” the engine at our expense, then we need to change “mechanics” as soon as possible.