NJ Education Report

Here’s Rishawn Biddle‘s analysis of New Jersey’s teachers’ pension deficits:

New Jersey’s teachers’ pension, for example, reports a $11 billion pension deficit (as of 2011, the latest year available); this doesn’t include any unrealized gains or losses (though the pension would report a $2 billion decline in assets between 2011 and 2012). But when one uses the Moody’s calculation — which assumes a rate of return that is 2.5 points lower and more-realistic than the 7.95 percent assumed by the Garden State pension — the actual pension deficit is more likely to be $15 billion. New Jersey districts — and taxpayers — would have to pay out an additional $878 million a year over 17 years just to make up the underfunding. That’s a 25 percent increase over the $3.2 billion Garden State districts paid out in teachers’ benefits in 2009-2010. This, by the way, doesn’t include the $14 billion in unfunded retired teacher healthcare costs (as of 2010, the latest year reported by the state treasury department) that must be borne by taxpayers — or the even larger $24 billion in future retirement healthcare liabilities for teachers still working (including Baby Boomers heading out of the profession over the next few years).