About our local teacher pension fund

Kudos to the DNT’s Jana Hollingsworth. After one of my posts about pension funds and my experience with the DFTRA I got the impression that she thought it was time she did a little research. Her story in today’s DNT did a very good job explaining how stupidly the pension fund for our Duluth public school teachers has been run at a time when conservative prudence was called for.

Its hard for me to be very sympathetic to the man in charge of the fund. He once wrote a letter to the editor saying it was high time I left the school board because I swore during a Board meeting. (It was because I wanted a levy referendum for more classroom spending placed on the ballot when one prominent Board member was bad mouthing it)

All the time I was busy fighting to have the Red Plan placed on the ballot for fear it would decimate our schools Mr. Stoffel oversaw increased pension outlays to growing numbers of retirees. Now he wants the taxpayers to offset his pension funds losses which can’t be made up because the Red Plan has thinned out ISD 709’s teachers who are DFTRA’s contributors. He’ll be lobbying to have the taxpayers make up for his tardy actions to shore up the fund. Perhaps the state should go into the business of insuring all pension funds both public and private. I’m sure a lot of private pension fund managers would love that kind of insurance.

The poor working teachers in Duluth with 40 kids in their classrooms are carrying a heavy burden and one of their rewards will be a much reduced pension.

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