Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GGG

The government match is about 9%. What teachers are forced to put in is not material to a wage discussion because it comes out of their wages but it’s somewhere around 10.

My point is that if a private company is giving 5% match the difference between a private sector plan and a teachers gold plated plan we complain about is a 4% difference in wages. It’s minuscule, what keeps people from retiring like teachers is they don’t save the same % of total income.

Well, sure, but that isn't entirely true. Part of the deal with the full DB pension is that the risk falls to the employer instead of the employee. If you have a DC pension plan with matching, the employer is effectively saying, "Here's your money. You figure out how to make that into a lifetime income, as we've done our part."

The DB pension, though, says, "You contribute, we contribute, and at the end of it, here is the lifetime income for you, no matter what happens in the markets or with the underlying investments."

You sound like you're assuming that people can save more and make that work. I don't entirely disagree. However, as people age and get closer to their retirement, and rely on that guaranteed income, they quickly see that the DC plan is not the same! Throw in some things like that benefits plan that also carries you through retirement or never having to concern yourself with a market downturn, and you have a lot of factors that make that DB plan very attractive.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by CFO

$110k max a year is a very fair wage. Considering their is a pension at the end of the rainbow. Can't get fired really.

The higher end wage provinces are places most don't want to live.

*there

You have no sense of reality. Teachers get let go all the time. Both for budgetary reasons and performance. And the pension is, frankly, poor. Go look at a cop's pension some time. Way more, after way less time (meaning they can then go work plus pull in more in pension than most people make working).

BTW, $110K is what a cop makes after 2 years on the job.

[TheIronMaiden]

Good education is the foundation of a good economy.
Everyone's pension relies on a kid entering kindergarten.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

*there

You have no sense of reality. Teachers get let go all the time. Both for budgetary reasons and performance. And the pension is, frankly, poor. Go look at a cop's pension some time. Way more, after way less time (meaning they can then go work plus pull in more in pension than most people make working).

BTW, $110K is what a cop makes after 2 years on the job.

This is the first time I've ever heard a teachers pension described as poor, so that is a new one!

The teachers plan has early retirement at 55, which I think is the same as the police pension. You could retire there, and do something else at that point.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Slava

This is the first time I've ever heard a teachers pension described as poor, so that is a new one!

The teachers plan has early retirement at 55, which I think is the same as the police pension. You could retire there, and do something else at that point.

You don't get full pension at early retirement as a teacher, whereas, the police pension is full retirement, and can be earlier than 55, depending on when they started (eg. if a cop starts at age 25, his pension vests fully at age 50).

I don't consider this a lot of money to live on:

According to the ATRF’s 2022 annual report, the average teacher retires at age 60 with twenty-five years of pensionable service. Using the ATRF pension formula, that would lead to an annual pension of just over $38,500 (assuming average earnings of $95,000 and average YMPE of $60,000). If you were that average teacher but left at age 55 with five fewer years of pensionable service, your annual pension would be just a bit over $30,800 minus a 20% reduction for starting the pension ten years short of the 85 factor (2 percent per year x 10 years) since you will be receiving your pension for 10 years more.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well, sure, but that isn't entirely true. Part of the deal with the full DB pension is that the risk falls to the employer instead of the employee. If you have a DC pension plan with matching, the employer is effectively saying, "Here's your money. You figure out how to make that into a lifetime income, as we've done our part."

The DB pension, though, says, "You contribute, we contribute, and at the end of it, here is the lifetime income for you, no matter what happens in the markets or with the underlying investments."

You sound like you're assuming that people can save more and make that work. I don't entirely disagree. However, as people age and get closer to their retirement, and rely on that guaranteed income, they quickly see that the DC plan is not the same! Throw in some things like that benefits plan that also carries you through retirement or never having to concern yourself with a market downturn, and you have a lot of factors that make that DB plan very attractive.

That isn’t entirely true either as existing teachers payback 50% of the shortfall for retired teachers. They are currently paying more than their share of the expected value of their DB plans because of previous under funding. So direct comparisons of the value are difficult.

There certainly is derisking which carries value in retirement. It’s also quite expensive relative to the average returns of a market based investments. It’s a trade off. There is also risk of benefit cuts based on future political risk. A teachers pension is not gold plated, it is a retirement plan that is a good but inflexible benefit.

It certainly does not deserve the bellyaching it gets from people who aren’t saving as much. From a discussion of pay standpoint we should be treating it like a 9% match.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

You don't get full pension at early retirement as a teacher, whereas, the police pension is full retirement, and can be earlier than 55, depending on when they started (eg. if a cop starts at age 25, his pension vests fully at age 50).

I don't consider this a lot of money to live on:

According to the ATRF’s 2022 annual report, the average teacher retires at age 60 with twenty-five years of pensionable service. Using the ATRF pension formula, that would lead to an annual pension of just over $38,500 (assuming average earnings of $95,000 and average YMPE of $60,000). If you were that average teacher but left at age 55 with five fewer years of pensionable service, your annual pension would be just a bit over $30,800 minus a 20% reduction for starting the pension ten years short of the 85 factor (2 percent per year x 10 years) since you will be receiving your pension for 10 years more.

That 38.5k a year is worth somewhere between 900k and 1.3 million. You also get CPP and OAS which is somewhere around 20k extra a year. 60k with a paid off house is a pretty nice retirement for a single earner.

[Harry Lime]

I didn't realize we were buying teachers houses. I'm outraged!

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

You don't get full pension at early retirement as a teacher, whereas, the police pension is full retirement, and can be earlier than 55, depending on when they started (eg. if a cop starts at age 25, his pension vests fully at age 50).

I don't consider this a lot of money to live on:

According to the ATRF’s 2022 annual report, the average teacher retires at age 60 with twenty-five years of pensionable service. Using the ATRF pension formula, that would lead to an annual pension of just over $38,500 (assuming average earnings of $95,000 and average YMPE of $60,000). If you were that average teacher but left at age 55 with five fewer years of pensionable service, your annual pension would be just a bit over $30,800 minus a 20% reduction for starting the pension ten years short of the 85 factor (2 percent per year x 10 years) since you will be receiving your pension for 10 years more.

The pension is not poor in my books unless you're comparing it to some gaudy private sector gravy train or political pensions. I can tell you that the pension payout is based off of their 5 best years of earnings - I'm not sure where you're numbers are from but they are dated (I've seen very recent figures from family and friends). By today's standard (pensions just don't exist very often) it is much more like $48-51K a year for the average (6 year degree) teacher, and is indexed for inflation, meaning it will continue to increase over time.

Teachers pay on average close to $1K/month into the pension plan over their careers and can't opt out. It's not a massive nest egg, but is certainly more than enough to pay the bills and have a decent retirement (especially when you combine CPP and OAS in time) provided you have paid off your home and have done some additional saving on the side. Even so, depending on life expectancy and health, like other savings vessels, many teachers may barely get back what they put in if you factor in growth on contributions over time.

I would argue that without this ATRF pension, there would be basically zero retention in the profession these days. You have too many dingbat parents that think $105k is a good salary with summers off, but the average corporate worker has no clue what a typical day in a classroom really entails while they (myself included) get to work remotely when it suits and shut an office door if things are getting off the rails.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

The pension is not poor in my books unless you're comparing it to some gaudy private sector gravy train or political pensions. I can tell you that the pension payout is based off of their 5 best years of earnings - I'm not sure where you're numbers are from but they are dated (I've seen very recent figures from family and friends). By today's standard (pensions just don't exist very often) it is much more like $48-51K a year for the average (6 year degree) teacher, and is indexed for inflation, meaning it will continue to increase over time.

Teachers pay on average close to $1K/month into the pension plan over their careers and can't opt out. It's not a massive nest egg, but is certainly more than enough to pay the bills and have a decent retirement (especially when you combine CPP and OAS in time) provided you have paid off your home and have done some additional saving on the side. Even so, depending on life expectancy and health, like other savings vessels, many teachers may barely get back what they put in if you factor in growth on contributions over time.

I would argue that without this ATRF pension, there would be basically zero retention in the profession these days. You have too many dingbat parents that think $105k is a good salary with summers off, but the average corporate worker has no clue what a typical day in a classroom really entails while they (myself included) get to work remotely when it suits and shut an office door if things are getting off the rails.

My numbers come from the ATA and the date of the data is right there in the quote. 2022. And since it's based on average salary over the career and wages haven't increased, there's no reason the benefit will have changed.

By comparison, police can retire as early as 50 as I mentioned, with a full pension which these days is somewhere around $80K/y.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

I can tell you that the pension payout is based off of their 5 best years of earnings - I'm not sure where you're numbers are from but they are dated (I've seen very recent figures from family and friends). By today's standard (pensions just don't exist very often) it is much more like $48-51K a year for the average (6 year degree) teacher, and is indexed for inflation, meaning it will continue to increase over time.

It really comes down to how many years of service they accrue. Based on current salaries and the 5-year average YMPE, a teacher at highest salary possible would get about $1.6K per year of service. So 30 years service and retirement at 60, then you'd be close to $50K.

But the average teacher doesn't hit that for a variety of reasons:

-not all have 6 years education

-they often can only get part-time/substitute work in the years after graduation, so pensionable service is slow to build up at the beginning

-they're predominantly women who often lose years of service when they have kids (unless they can afford to buy the service back soon after returning from leave)

[Point Blank]

Originally Posted by Locke

Does a Teacher want to trade to being a Tax Accountant?

Every job has it's ####.

Yes except a teacher’s #### ends up with children as collateral. It seems like many of you have forgotten who we serve.

As other teachers have pointed out (repeatedly): most teachers are happy with the salary, but not classroom size and complexity.

We can’t help kids in classroom sizes of 30 in elementary, and 40 in high school. 5 years ago my class size was a reasonable 25 in elementary, I was disappointed in a 0% raise but I reluctantly accepted because I was supported in the classroom. Paying me more would be a decent alternative to the problem, but would not be the most ideal solution as that still doesn’t directly help the kids.

As much as the UCP wants to pretend teachers are striking over money and not the children, it’s almost weird how some people against teachers in this thread never actually bring up children and keep talking about salary.

[Captain Otto]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

My numbers come from the ATA and the date of the data is right there in the quote. 2022. And since it's based on average salary over the career and wages haven't increased, there's no reason the benefit will have changed.

By comparison, police can retire as early as 50 as I mentioned, with a full pension which these days is somewhere around $80K/y.

Not sure what police you are referring to but they can retire at 25 years and/or age 55. The highest level constable gets under $60k/yr.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Captain Otto

Not sure what police you are referring to but they can retire at 25 years and/or age 55. The highest level constable gets under $60k/yr.

They can retire at 25 years which is probably 50, and there's not too many people who retire as a constable. Their pension IIRC is based on 50% of their highest 5 years of employment.

Not sure where your wage figures come from but CPS right now gets $73-78K/y for new officers and they get to $121K in 4 years. Then they can get further compensation for extra duty, specialization, etc.

https://join.calgarypolice.ca/benefits/

[Captain Otto]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

They can retire at 25 years which is probably 50, and there's not too many people who retire as a constable. Their pension IIRC is based on 50% of their highest 5 years of employment.

Not sure where your wage figures come from but CPS right now gets $73-78K/y for new officers and they get to $121K in 4 years. Then they can get further compensation for extra duty, specialization, etc.

https://join.calgarypolice.ca/benefits/

The vast majority retire as a constable. The rank scheme is set up that way as is pretty well most places including the private sector - a pyramid where the majority are constables which is exactly what retirement looks like.

Very few retire at 50. Some go earlier, some go later but as I said, 55 seems to be the average age of most.

50% pension at 121k is 60k.

Sent from my Pixel 9 Pro XL using Tapatalk

[para transit fellow]

Alberta's over-sized classrooms will not help us achieve this goal:

“Society wants and needs good citizens. It is the business of the Social Studies courses to help produce these good citizens, well-adjusted socially and well equipped mentally, citizens capable of thinking intelligently and determined to do their part in bringing about social progress.”

Spoiler!

(1947, Alberta Department of Education)

[WinnipegFan]

Originally Posted by CFO

So question teachers - if AB was to throw enough money at the teacher number size so that all classes maxed out at 20 kids. Would you take a pay cut and max out high end at $90k?

As appealing as this idea sounds it is an impossibility. The infrastructure of schools in Alberta can't even come close to supporting this. It isn't just teachers that have been underfunded, it's the entire system. There are not enough spaces in schools to serve the student population as it is, with classes over 40 in high school. You can legally reduce the class size, but you also need classrooms to teach these in and current schools don't have them.

This has been decades of neglect with governments on all sides pointing the finger at teachers because it is easy to blame them. Then the public gets caught up in the same old debates that are playing out here. No one pays attention to the real issues, and the system deteriorates further.

Before you say, go do something else, I did. I left. I packed up my family said goodbye to the flailing system. I watch from outside of it and I can't feel better about my choice. I teach elsewhere in schools that still have their struggles but at least they maintain realistic class sizes, excellent facilities, and focus on curriculum instead of political movements in the education.

Alberta Education needs some real help, but the people that live there don't want to accept it. Everyone is so busy polarizing on the political aspects that the students are falling through the cracks (chasms). I feel for the kids, hearing form my colleagues that are still there it is horrible in the classrooms now. If your kid has any need beyond the minimal they are not being served.

Teachers deserve more money so they can live.

The pension is terrible, and the union gets rich of dead teachers in a fashion similar to the Ontario Pension. Teachers are best served to pull it before they are 55 and invest it themselves with a financial advisor. I have watched at least 20 colleagues do this to incredible success.

The system is broken as emails went out highlighting this year that grade 4 students won't learn about Alberta with the change in curriculum being forced through.

I wish all teachers the best, and I hope they hold the line. This fight needs to be fought I left years ago thinking it would never happen. Happy to see that it finally is.

[woob]

Originally Posted by CFO

So question teachers - if AB was to throw enough money at the teacher number size so that all classes maxed out at 20 kids. Would you take a pay cut and max out high end at $90k?

You know who should take pay cuts? CEOs and CFOs. Cut their pay and bonus structures and make all companies contribute to an education fund to build new schools, fill them with the best tools to help all children learn, and pay teachers like executives. Since we’re talking about things that won’t happen.

But nah let’s just continue to vilify teachers, make excuses for governments not paying them what they’re worth, and look the other way as more schools aren’t being built. That’ll work well in the decades to come.

I think it’s absolute madness that a large portion of people are ok with us nickel and diming the education systems and teachers.

[Erick Estrada]

My ex is a teacher and I got to see her pension numbers during the separation process and all I can say is that I wish I had that terrible pension.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CFO

So question teachers - if AB was to throw enough money at the teacher number size so that all classes maxed out at 20 kids. Would you take a pay cut and max out high end at $90k?

Would you take a 20% pay cut for the same hours for less work during those hours?

I think this question is kind of ridiculous.