If you have noticed your teachers wiping tears from their eyes, being on edge, or scouring the floors for forgotten pennies in between classes, it might be due to Kentucky’s Pension “Crisis”.

A pension is a retirement plan for public employees like teachers, police officers, firemen, and yes even elected officials.

Teaching is not a job that is going to make you rich, but pensions offer teacher’s security in retirement that other professions might not have.

Kentucky currently has a pension shortfall of about $39 billion.

To fix this shortfall, Governor Bevin and state Republicans have suggested that new employees shift to defined contribution plans (401k) rather than those pensions that guarantee our financial security in retirement.

They have also suggested a 3% teacher pay cut to help fund retirement healthcare, the removal of accumulated sick days as a calculation in retirement, and freeze on cost of living adjustments.

Meanwhile, the governor has taken to social media to attack teachers for “hoarding” sick days and assuring state employees that his way is the only way to save the pension system.

His logic, however, misleads Kentuckians to thinking that the KY pension system is a drain on the state’s taxpayers.

Teachers pay into their pensions just like private employees pay into theirs. Every year, we pay about 13% of our income to the teacher pension system.

As our employer, the state of Kentucky is required by law to match those contributions. The problem with this scenario however, is that fifteen of the last twenty years the state has violated the law by failing to match our contributions.

In addition to that failure, they have also removed over $200 million from the money that teachers paid into the system and used it for other projects.

The problems with the teacher’s pension system are the fault of the KY state government rather that the teachers who have paid their part.

Thus, the solutions for this problem should fall on the state rather than the employees.

Every solution put forth by the state has been a punishment to state workers rather than the state government that failed to keep their promise.

The suggested reform measures would require teachers to pay an additional 3% into the retirement system, but fails to guarantee that the government will keep its end of the bargain by paying its half.

The governor and the republicans in power have also failed to address tax reform which could fix the pension crisis without cutting benefits.

The state of Kentucky gives away over $10 billion a year in tax credits, deductions, and exemptions. Most of that money is given to giant corporations and the wealthiest 1%.

Shouldn’t they be the ones that sacrifice for our education system rather than the people who have devoted their lives to its success?

Most teachers did not enter the profession for the money.

We entered to impact the lives of students and our passion for our subject.

Teachers may not deserve the pay of a doctor, lawyer, or CEO, but we deserve the right to retire with security for the sacrifices that we have made.