Bill offering false solutions to teacher shortage up for final House vote Wednesday
02/02/2016
HB 1004 (Rep. Bob Behning, R – Indianapolis) was heard on 2nd reading Tuesday with expectations it will come for a final vote on Wednesday.
Keep calling and emailing your representatives asking them to oppose the bill. Even if you’ve contacted them before, they need to be reminded at each stage in the process.
An amendment to HB 1004, passed Tuesday, mirrors what the Senate did with SB 10. The amendment would allow supplemental pay deals (some may say “sweetheart” deals) to be offered to select teachers behind closed doors during a school board’s executive session—shielding this information from the public. The amendment passed 67 – 30.
House Democrats offered several positive amendments to improve the bill. Namely, an amendment by Rep. Terri Jo Austin (D – Anderson) was presented as a compromise. The amendment would have allowed school administrators and teachers to bargain the supplemental pay under the bill, as well as create a summer study on the new defined contribution plan rushed to be included in the bill. Unfortunately, Austin’s amendment was defeated 30 – 67.
As it now stands, HB 1004 would allow school administrators unilaterally, and behind closed doors, to offer extra pay to certain teachers. The extra pay will come out of the pockets of every other teacher as this bill does not include funding.
HB 1004 also would include a new 401(k)-style defined contribution (DC) teacher retirement program as an alternative to the existing defined benefit (DB) pension/annuity plan. Today, supporters of this plan released a letter from the Indiana Public Retirement System (INPRS) purporting to relieve everyone from concerns that this proposed DC plan would not negatively impact the stability of Indiana’s current retirement plan for teachers. The letter gave little relief to those who understand the true impact of divesting from our healthy retirement fund.
Soundness of the fund is always a concern, of course. What the INPRS letter doesn’t directly say is that this new DC plan will cost about $1 million in upfront costs incurred by INPRS and could cost employers--our local school districts--even more as they try to fund the existing defined benefit (DB) retirement plan. If the employer contribution rate rises, that leaves fewer dollars on the table with which to bargain salary and wages for school employees. Less funding results in suppressed career salary earnings, which directly impacts a teacher’s pension, because one’s pension is partly determined by one’s highest five years of salary.
HB 1004 doesn’t address what might happen to a teacher who opts into a DC plan in one school district, but then moves to another where the DC plan is not offered. Legislators haven’t spent a moment studying the creation of a voluntary DC plan for teachers, nor its true short- and long-term consequences.
Please continue telling legislators to vote “no" on HB 1004.