MSEA’s 2006 Push for Pensions campaign makes gains in educator pensions!
Governor signs pension improvement legislation into law
In a national climate where public and private entities are cutting back or eliminating their employee defined-benefit pension plans, Maryland legislators took an important step forward during the last days of the 2006 General Assembly when they unanimously passed a pension improvement bill for educators and other state employees.
The improvement
The improved pension benefit will mean that all school employees currently in the Pension System will receive thousands more in their pockets every year of their retirement.
| The new legislation: | |||
 |
1.8% multiplier | |
Retroactive to 1998 |
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5% member contribution phased in over 3 years for everyone. | |
Bifurcated* are included; local governments will have one year to adopt the improvements. |
| *Bifurcated refers to a small group of members who have service credit in both the Retirement System and the Pension System. They left their contributions in the Retirement System when they began earning Pension System benefits. | |||
| Example An employee who began in 1998 and retires with a $50,000 final average salary, would see their annual pension jump from $21,000 (42%) to $27,000 (54%) – a $6,000 annual increase. For the same employee retiring on a $25,000 average salary, this translates into a $3,000 annual increase in retirement income. | |||
Governor Ehrlich and your pension
No funding included in budget
Many legislators recognized the need to do much more to improve educators’ pensions, but were constrained by Governor Ehrlich’s failure to take a lead by providing funding for an improvement in his budget. (Maryland’s governor is one of the most powerful in the country—he alone has the power to increase the budget.)
Governor Ehrlich had, in fact, two opportunities to put money for pensions in his budget this year. First, he failed to include a pension enhancement in his proposed $29.6 billion State Budget. Second, he proposed spending an additional $430 million in his supplemental budget (an executive amendment to his proposed budget) but once again failed to earmark any funds for pension improvement!
Legislators heard the message!
MSEA Push for Pensions contacts totaled over 100,000 emails, letters, phone calls, faxes, and Lobby Night visits
Thanks to every one of our members for a fantastic Push for Pensions campaign! Without your advocacy and activism this could not have happened! And thanks to the General Assembly for recognizing the very serious need for a better pension for Maryland educators at every stage of their career. 
MSEA President Pat Foerster
The pension improvement is a big victory for MSEA’s 64,000 members, all of whom deserve a decent retirement for their years of service to students and the public. The Push for Pensions campaign mobilized thousands of members, many of them first-time activists, to improve Maryland's bottom-of-the-barrel benefit. Members, committed not only to improving the benefit for their own futures but out of concern for the profession and Maryland students, carried the message to colleagues, legislators and the public.
“One of the problems we have in Maryland is retaining teachers because they leave after they get a few years of experience. We know that children do better when we have consistency with our teachers,” said Dori Miller, a teacher at Dr. James Craig ES in Charles County. “We train teachers and then they go back to get jobs in other states where they can get better pay and benefits—like a decent pension.”
In over 100,000 emails, letters, phone calls, faxes, and Lobby Night visits throughout the 90-day session, delegates and senators from every county heard the Push for Pension message: “Worst teachers’ pension in the nation,” “Third wealthiest state,” “Neighboring states far exceed us,” “Recruitment and retention suffer,” and “Maryland reduced to a training ground for young teachers who gain experience then go elsewhere for better benefits.”
It was the non-stop messaging blitz of the Push for Pensions campaign that catapulted MSEA’s proposal from “just another bill” to one of the most highly visible and highly charged issues of the session.
Thanks to legislators
Credit for the improvement must also go to key leaders and members of the General Assembly, who in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion, recognized the importance of this improvement to Maryland’s educators and to its students and taxpayers. They worked hard to find $120 million to implement the improvement July 1, 2006 and an additional $1.67 billion to fund the improvement over the next 25 years.
Southern Maryland Senator Roy Dyson, like many other legislators, cited the Push for Pensions campaign as one of the most effective grassroots efforts legislators had seen in years.
“… The breaking point for these teachers and state employees came this year when they impressively banded together to lobby for reform in the best and truest grassroots effort I’ve seen in quite some time,” said Senator Roy Dyson in an April newsletter.
“I don’t just hear about the need for pension reform in Annapolis. I hear it at church dinners, fire and rescue awards banquets, farm bureau dinners and even at my local gas station. This is a real and necessary problem that must be addressed.”
More to do
Maryland’s teacher pension has a direct impact on the state’s ability to recruit and retain the quality teaching staff that students, parents and communities deserve and expect. To fully solve the problem, MSEA will continue pushing for a decent pension for Maryland educators—raising them to a respectable and competitive national average.
