QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“We just can’t bail them out.”
Commissioner Susan Shaw commenting on the state’s plan to shift teacher
pension funding responsibilities to Maryland’s 24 jurisdictions.
Noting it was a “rare occasion,” Calvert County Commissioners’ President Gerald W. “Jerry” Clark [R] called to order a press conference prior to the panel’s Tuesday, Feb. 28 meeting. The board set up the event to make it official—they intend to fight any plan Maryland officials might have to shift funding responsibilities for public school teachers’ pensions to the state’s 24 jurisdictions. Such a plan is contained in the budget Gov. Martin O’Malley [D] submitted to the Maryland General Assembly earlier this year. It will be up to state lawmakers to either approve O’Malley’s proposal or find another way to balance the state’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 operating budget.
Clark indicated Calvert’s share of the $240 million funding shift for FY 2013 alone would be devastating and the impact on future budgets would be worse.
“This deficit is not of our making,” said Clark. “It would adversely impact county services.” The board president noted that the county commissioners “have a long history of support for education in Calvert County.”
“All counties are working” to fight the funding shift, said Commissioner Susan Shaw [R], who is Calvert’s representative to the Maryland Association of Counties [MACo]. Shaw said the pension system currently has an unfunded liability of nearly $22 billion. “This gargantuan liability will affect our bond rating,” said Shaw. “It’s not well thought out. Counties have no control over the way this [pension fund] is structured.”
Several entities whose county funding could be in jeopardy if the pension funding is shifted to the jurisdictions addressed the cameras.
<!–
–>
