Does it really matter?

Via pension tsunami

A new Public Policy Institute of California poll shows the number of state residents worried about the cost of government pensions is at a 14-year low. In recent remarks to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, new state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond rejected the idea that pension costs were generally a major problem for school districts around the state.But a recent comprehensive review by the Bond Buyer painted a starkly different picture. Based on interviews with officials in credit-rating agencies and the state’s Fiscal Crisis Management Action Team (FCMAT), as well as reviews of financial records from large school districts across the state, it forecast a wave of state takeovers of districts under the provisions of a 1991 state law that provides emergency loans to districts that can’t pay bills. But the loans come with the condition that district superintendents and school boards lose considerable autonomy over their budgets, which must have as a first priority repaying the loan to the state.Nine districts have taken out such loans since 1991, and the Sacramento City Unified School District could become the 10th this fall when it is expected to run out of dwindling cash reserves.

The state is ultimately responsible in any event.  The state imposed the original restrictions on bargaining. This will add another 5 billion to the state budget, and the state is running thin on taxable sources. 

Hence the Harris gambit.  Get the Swamp to pick up another 50 billion a year, total, for all the teachers everywhere.

Adding injury, of course, is the the large State of California reaches its limits right about when the Swamp reaches its limits. That point is increasingly looking like now.  One will start default besides Illinois.  Be prepared for the meeting of the elders, get your position represented in bankruptcy court.