Pensions Devour CA Tax Revenues Slated for Schools

Who saw that coming?

In the lead up to the November 6 election last fall, CalWatchdog.com ran several articles on Proposition 30 and pensions. We warned that the $7 billion tax increase would go not to schools, as advertised by Gov. Jerry Brown and others in TV ads, but to teacher pensions and other spending. I'll quote some below.

The news now is that this is exactly what is happening. David Crane, a Democrat who was a budget adviser to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has the facts in a Bloomberg article:

"Most Californians would be surprised to learn that 100 percent of education's share of the tax increase proposed by Governor Jerry Brown will go to pensions instead of classrooms. But that would be no surprise to longtime observers of the California State Teachers' Retirement System, which administers teacher pensions.