Re: “School districts getting no help with big pension bills”
School districts in Pennsylvania do not negotiate pension benefits with public employees; Pennsylvania has controlled all public school pensions since 1919. The amount of money deposited into PSERS is dictated to school districts by the state.
The current crisis was created in early 2001 when the state legislature granted itself and many other state officials a 50% increase in its pension; to divert attention, 25% pension increases were given to all state and public school employees. Then Pennsylvania, assuming a double-digit return on investments, failed to charge school districts enough to adequately fund the retirement programs. Double digit investment losses during the 2008 financial crisis made the pension funding shortfall much worse
Perhaps a solution is to reset the pensions to pre 2001 levels. Including the politicians pensions.