Rhose Island Senate Votes Unanimously to Increase Pension Liability!

The Rhode Island Senate passed unanimously to increase the pension unfunded liability. They did this by voting for up to 50 retired educators to be hired by the state at $500 per day to spend the $75 million that the US government foolishly  gave us in the "race to the top."

Where do I begin to say what is wrong with this? Do I start with the horrible precedent of having educators retire, especially the high end ones that Deborah Gist wants to hire for this purpose who were principals or superintendents, whose pensions are $80,000-$120,000, and then collect $500 per day extra for doing the same job?

Everyone! Retire today! Stay in your job and make an extra $500 per day!

Can you imagine the gold rush to retire as soon as possible? Why would anyone want one paycheck when they can get two for the same job? More and sooner retirements means more pension liability.

Or perhaps I should address the problem of equity? Won't every teacher and state worker what the same right?  Sure they will!

After all, a retired state worker is more experienced that any newly degreed one. Just retire, get your pension, and reapply for the same job. You are the most qualified and experienced, after all you have been doing it for 30 years. Plus after 30 years you probably know lots of people.

In Rhode Island that, of course, is the most important hiring criteria. The only jobs that will open will be when someone dies, or more what's more likely, goes to prison. If you are graduating from college this year, forget about getting a job with the state, which by the way is the state's largest employer. (High school graduates can still get $88,000 jobs, of course, if you know the right people.)

All this is because Deborah Gist says she needs the expertise of the retired educators to implement the race to the top money. She says this can only be found from the retired leaders of our education system. Yeah right!

When we hired Deborah Gist as commisioner, we passed over all those same educators to get a qualified outsider because our education system is failing so badly none of the educators here fit the bill. And I think she has done a brave  job for the most part.

But if the plan for the $75 millionrRace to the top is to fix our educational system, then why in God's name are we hiring the same educational leaders who failed to make it a successful system in the first place.

If our system is broken and it is, then paying the leaders who broke it $500 per day to fix it is not the answer. If they had the answers, then they would have implemented it before the retired, wouldn't they?

Or did they need to paychecks to have the answer and do the work?

The old adage is: The true definition of insanity is to make the same mistake and expect a different result. This is very expensive insanity. Truly.