Dear Friend,

"Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one and indivisible." — The pledge of allegiance to the Texas flag.

The pledge of allegiance to Texas' flag, which is now mandatory for all schoolchildren, contains a mistake. The treaty under which Texas became part of the United States contains a clause under which Texas reserved the right to subdivide into as many as five different states. The author of the Texas pledge may wish it were otherwise, but Texas is quite divisible, legally speaking.

There is more than one way to skin new teachers. The 2003 Legislature cut costs by delaying Teacher Retirement System eligibility for newly hired school employees until they have been on the payroll for 90 days, thereby saving the state treasury 90 days' worth of pension payments for them. "Whoa!" said Social Security officials. "If these folks are not covered by a state-sponsored pension plan they must be covered by Social Security. Fork over 12.4% of salary for each of these employees to cover the required matching contributions from both employer and employee."

The Legislature should have deep-sixed this nonsensical idea. Instead, a devious solution was found that would cheat the TRS, the Social Security System and the new employee. During an employee's first 90 days on the job, his salary would be reduced by 7.5%, with the money from the reduction put into an individual retirement account. Presumably this solves the state's legal problem, though it would add another item to the list of burdens piled on the backs of school employees by the 78th Legislature. This scheme has yet to be passed into law, but we expect another try to pass it shortly.

In the July TFT Update, I wrote, "State leaders boast that they dealt with a huge state deficit without raising taxes. Actually, they solved the deficit in large part by taxing school employees and schoolchildren."

State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn advanced a similar argument in a recent press conference. Strayhorn noted that new laws enacted by the 78th Legislature dip into Texans' pocketbooks for about $2.7 billion in new and higher fees, charges, and out-of-pocket expenses during the next two years. Who pays the tab for these fees, charges, and out of pocket expenses? Strayhorn listed some examples.

• Legislators took the biggest bite from school employees' paychecks. Your pockets get picked to the tune of $1.07 billion.
• Sick children get hit hard. Parents who work for a living, but whose wages won't cover the cost of health care for their kids, will have to come up with $57.9 million more in the next two years to keep their children in the Children's Health Insurance Program--if their children qualify at all under the new, tougher rules.
• Retired school employees face higher premiums and higher copay amounts for TRS-CARE.
• Higher licensing fees will gouge businesses and professional employees for $63.4 million.
• New teachers may be among those gouged by higher fees. The State Board for Educator Certification wants to tax new teachers $10 more for a certificate, then pile on an additional $45 to cover the cost of the new law requiring new teachers to be fingerprinted.

"While these are not new taxes adopted by the Legislature, these dollars are still coming out of hard-working Texans' pockets," Strayhorn said.

State Senator Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock) and State Representative Dianne Delisi (R-Temple) successfully pushed SB 1369 and SB 1370, which make it more difficult for retiring school employees to qualify for the health insurance program for retired school employees, TRS-CARE. Together these new laws do two things, beginning September 1, 2004.

(1) School employees retiring after September 1, 2004, must either be 65 years old with 10 years' service in Texas public schools or must meet the "rule of 80" (years of age + years of service in Texas public schools equal 80).

(2) School employees who moved to Texas in mid-career may not count years of service in another state when qualifying for TRS-CARE, even if those school employees paid TRS to purchase retirement credit for those years spent working outside the state.

Why put roadblocks in the way of retired school employees who want to get health insurance through TRS-CARE? Slamming the door in a retiree's face saves the state about $500 per month.

Texas will now charge new teachers more to get a certificate, while the state provides experienced teachers with good reasons to retire before September 1 of next year. Ever wonder why we have a teacher shortage?

Some referee should blow a whistle and throw a red flag for piling on. As if the Legislature did not do enough damage by cutting school employees' health insurance stipends from $1,000 down to $500, the Teacher Retirement System has adopted a rule that will take the other $500 from about 21,000 counselors, librarians, school nurses, diagnosticians, speech pathologists, speech therapists and other professional support staff. Here's how that happened.

The Legislature took $500 from most school employees, but administrators are to lose the whole $1,000. Which ones are the administrators? That question stumped the lawmakers who scratched their heads and pitched that hot potato to the Teacher Retirement System. TRS officials pondered the problem and announced that any non-teacher professional who earns more than $50,000 annually must be an administrator.

Why try to cheat hard-working employees who perform essential educational services out of $500? This slap at counselors, librarians, et al. saves the state about $21 million. TRS wants to give that money to school districts to help them pay for health insurance that the state requires them to provide to school employees. Giving money to districts to pay for health insurance is a noble goal, but school employees should not be expected to dig into their pockets again to spare the state the expense of doing its share.

TFT has sued TRS to force it to pay the $500 stipend to those 21,000 school employees who (while they may not be classroom teachers) are clearly not school administrators. The case was filed August 21, so we have just started plodding down the legal road. We want to keep all our members informed, but we have a special need to find a way to contact quickly our members who might be affected directly by the lawsuit. Attached with this newsletter is a form that seeks to find out who among you is one of the 21,000 school employees who will lose $500 unless the TRS ruling is overturned. If the shoe fits you, please take a moment to fill out the form and return it. You can also log onto TFT's web page (www.tft.org) and leave a message there.

¡Que viva Mexico! ¡Viva la independencia! As Diez y Seis approaches TFT receives hundreds of requests for one of our Hispanic Heritage kits. You can get one by calling 1-800-222-3827 or by leaving a request on TFT's web page (www.tft.org).

Sincerely,