Reply to Dec 18th: FY 2026 Recommended Operating Budget

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Many teachers and paras are locked in by pension and health care.  There is a huge penalty if you retire early.  Heck you aren’t even eligible for anything in the pension system unless you have been in Maryland for 10 years working full time.

Every staff member I know plans to leave at full retirement age.  For many it is around 60 or so.  Younger teachers have to work 5 years longer than that and get a smaller pension.

I know one teacher staying longer. They say they need the money to take care of adult children. But they are basically working at half the pay rate now since they are pushing off collecting the pension.

FYI, teachers put in 7.5% of our salaries into the pension.  It’s not some sort of free benefit or something.  Teacher submissions account for about 75% of teacher pensions paid out.  The counties and state cover the rest.   It’s only about 50% of the final salary.  It will be less for younger teachers eventually.[/quote]

Paras make minimum wage and don’t often get benefits.  [/quote]

Then clearly this isn’t a job that can be worked by people who don’t have a higher earning spouse or a couple roommates.

There is the way we want things to be and then there is reality. If you want things to be different then you do the advocacy work with the people who can make the changes (county council, state politicians, federal politicians, MCEA, etc) and in the meantime you make plans for reality.

Like many private sector workers who have moved jobs and occasionally states for better salaries and who put away 15-20% of their income for retirement because they don’t have a pension.[/quote]

While I certainly don’t think the pay is acceptable, I do know a paraeducator who is single. They pay is still slightly better than child care centers, and the benefits are much better if you can get one of those positions.

Unfortunately, the para positions assigned to kids with special needs and behavioral problems generally don’t get benefits. As a result, there’s high turnover and staff quality varies wildly.  The first priority should be extending benefits to all para positions.[/quote]

Since this thread is about the presented budget, the first step should be CO/Superintendent explaining what the 688 requested Special Ed positions are to be, along with explanation of the cost analysis done to determine if a position should be salary only/salary +benefits and the necessary salary benchmarking.[/quote]

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