New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is primed to approve a brand new agreement that will boost retirement incentives for many New York City schoolteachers. Upon approval, teachers would be able to retire up to five years earlier than they can presently, while still acquiring full pension benefits. The article explains how the new plan would make New York City schoolteachers able to retire with full pension at the age of 55 with 25 years of work. Currently, they can retire at 55 but they need to have a full 30 years of service.
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the deal, even though it would cost the city approximately $99.2 million a year (and the state of New York is currently facing a 4.4 billion dollar budget deficit). Bloomberg, though, has “characterized the plan as ‘cost neutral,’ in part because the highly paid teachers who would be eligible to retire would be replaced by teachers who would earn far less. ” Still, many budget groups see the plan as ill conceived and careless. Head research director for the Citizens Budget Commission, (a “nonpartisan, nonprofit civic organization devoted to influencing constructive change in the finances and services of New York City and New York State government ”) Charles Brecher, states, “You can’t have a more generous pension system and not have it cost more money. It’s taking a pension system that is already pretty generous and making it even more generous.”
Reading the article, my first impression was that it was a fairly good plan; it would make teachers happier and be an incentive for more people to enter into the teaching field. But when I further researched the deal, I found out that in exchange for the pension plan, the union will sign off on a plan to give teachers bonuses if their schools “significantly lift student test scores, improve attendance and meet other criteria.” I feel as if this puts a black cloud over the whole thing, because teachers are going to start only concentrating on getting...