Poster child for spoiled teachers
52 days’ work a year too much for former principal
Gary Keating has become the poster child for entitled Canadian public schoolteachers and an abject lesson as to the problem with public-sector labour negotiations.
During his 28-year teaching career, Keating had risen to the position of high school principal before venturing into politics. But only three weeks after being elected to the New Brunswick legislature by a mere nine votes, he resigned, betraying his party, constituents and New Brunswick’s taxpayers, who must now foot the bill for a byelection. Keating said it quickly became apparent the job’s “long hours and travel” were such “that the role is not for me.”
The travel he referred to is the 100 kilometres, or an hour of highway driving, between Saint John and Fredericton — less than the average daily commute for employees in the Greater Toronto Area. And how often would he be required to even attend the legislature? Assuming he did not keep an apartment in Fredericton, the legislature sat for a grand total of 52 days last year and 45 in 2014 as of the end of last month.
Sticking with the “long hours,” which apparently was incompatible with this teacher’s view of his “health” (he is a marathon runner, not an overweight diabetic) and “family life,” we are, after all, not talking about the federal minister of finance but a New Brunswick backbencher.
There are teachers who work hard, and others who do not work hard but are nevertheless good teachers. But if you are looking for a career that permits you to work few hours, take three months off a year, have job security despite your performance and retire at age 55 with a great pen- sion, public school-teaching is the only game in town. That makes it inevitable that many people enter teaching largely for the lifestyle at the expense of our youth and, ultimately, this country’s educational needs.
I have devoted a couple of columns to excessive teacher salaries, which garnered more reaction than anything else I have written, because no one had published the calculations until then. I noted that the average elementary public schoolteacher in Toronto, who decided to work only the minimum hours required by their collective agreement, earned a wage of $78 an hour (likely that has gone up). In Ontario, the 2012 Drummond Report found about half of teachers were at the top level of their salary range, at nearly $95,000. This puts them well into the top 10% of income earners, according to Statistics Canada’s National Household Survey from 2011. In Alberta, the average teacher now earns $99,300. Canadian teachers are among the three highest paid in the world. And I did not even take into consideration their benefits.
But the biggest boondoggle is teachers’ pensions, which are calculated on 70% of their best five years’ average earnings for life with inflation adjustments. They can work parttime, then go full-time for the last five years and retire with a massive pension for life, while supplementing that income with work as an occasional public schoolteacher or a fulltime private-school one. We are subsidizing our most experienced teachers to leave at age 55, on a full pension, while they double-dip. While teachers do contribute half of their pensions, the taxpayers pay the other half. That assumes there is no shortfall and pressure for taxpayers to make it up.
And with skyrocketing teachers’ salaries, that mean future pensions will be even higher. A report from Mercers in Australia showed publicsector workers live almost four years longer than others. The statistics here are similar, Bill Tufts wri te s in Pe n--
sion Ponzi, and the reason is “great pensions and no stress in retirement and early retirement.” As of 2013, teachers work an average of 26 years and are retired for an average of 31 years. So what should the $78-an-hour pay really be for total remuneration, based on the hours teachers are actually required to work — $175 an hour? $190? And all of this with no risk or expenses.
Furthermore, in our low interest rate environment, the assets required to support pensions are much greater. At 1%, $970,000 is required to sustain a typical $40,000 pension. At 5%, only $575,000 is.
Although I do not predict the imminent demise of any provincial governments, despite their spendthrift predilections, the town of Springhill, N.S., just voted to dissolve itself as a result of the impact of police pension costs.
Here is what I recommend: Change collective bargaining. Provincial governments must start taking tougher positions at the bargaining table. Many private-sector unions have long understood the need to make concessions to keep the businesses whose members they represent solvent. Eliminate defined-benefit pension plans. These have virtually disappeared in the private sector. Whether it be through negotiations or legislation, they should be replaced with defined-contribution plans, so teachers receive only what their plans have earned. Raise teachers’ retirement age. They should not be permitted to retire on full pension before age 67, any more than can the taxpayers who employ them. End double-dipping. Those who are collecting pensions should not be permitted to work in the public school system. If they choose to work elsewhere, there should be a reduction in their pension accordingly, in part to reduce the drain on public finances and also to discourage early retirement. Balance the pension system. The sheer amount of teachers’ pensions should be dramatically reduced or at least the taxpayer contribution portion be eliminated, until their pensions are in line with the median of taxpayers’ pensions.