So, after I posted yesterday's entry, the electrician's wife called me back -- also very sweet -- and said she had heard the message I left, and had called him to pass it on and he would be back within the hour. He got here about twenty minutes later, all apologetic. I told him that I had immediately checked the breakers but they seemed okay, and he nodded and said he thought he knew what it was. He fixed it in about five minutes. Seems he had left a wire disconnected somewhere. Oh, really? Well. Isn't that special. I'm just glad that my electrician needs are over for the immediate future, aka this decade. I even had a light put in over the Hubs' little workshop area, despite the fact that he said he didn't need it, because I don't ever want to look for an electrician again. In the future, everything had better come with batteries.And then I'm cruising the news sites, and I came across this article. Don't read it, please; I'm just linking because ... well, you link to articles you're referring to, and in this case, quoting from. It's about property tax reform in New Jersey. (Now you know why I told you not to read it.) First, it seems that NJ has the highest property taxes in the country, which does not so much surprise me. (We also have the highest car insurance rates.) Most of our schools are funded via the property tax, which to tell the truth, I didn't know that other states don't do. Our problem is primarily that we have several huge, poverty-stricken cities with a small amount of taxable properties, so everyone else's taxes -- mine, let's say, here in the suburbs -- have to be high enough to support my local schools as well as, say, Newark's or Paterson's. Anyway, Corzine was elected governor last year in part due to his promises to reform property taxes and car insurance, and he just raised the sales tax to help with the property taxes, and yada yada who really cares, except for this tidbit in the article:
Public employee pensions account for a large chunk of local spending. So increasing the retirement age, changing how pensions are calculated, or forcing employees to pay more for health care could help.
I added the bold, but you knew that. Under the current plan, teachers are eligible to retire with a full pension when they meet two conditions: you have to be 55 years old, and you have to have at least 25 years in the system. Well, this is year 30 for me, so I'm covered there, but I'm 53. I'll be eligible to retire in January 2008, although in my school district we have to wait until June, and I've been planning for one year past that, June 2009. Unless they raise the minimum age to, say, 58 before then. Or, god forbid, 60. In that case, I'd have no choice but to stay, and at that point I'd be without the Colleague (63 now) or even the SCM (60 this year). Neither one of them has the years yet, but they will, long before I turn 60. At 60, I'd have been there for ... I can't even figure it out ... wait ... I guess it's 36 years. Or something like that.
I am not as horrified by this prospect as I might be, although I certainly hate it there. It would certainly do wonders for my pension, not to mention the money I'd be earning for all those years I'd be working without children at home or in school. And I'm thinking that by then, there won't be anybody left at the high school that I know, and at least one of the middle school librarians will have to retire before me -- they're both older than I am -- and I'd just shift over to one of them, if I could. Both schools have administrators who came from the high school, both guys that I've worked very well with in the past. That's assuming they're still there.
Even so, that's a lot of whacky plans to make so far in advance, especially based on a random line in a news article, but I've heard the rumors before about raising the retirement age. I think the school districts will fight it anyway, since it means paying people at the top of the payscale for years more, instead of letting them retire and paying someone new a much lower wage. It's all out of one pocket to pay another.
When we heard a rumor about this a few months ago, the Chum advised me to keep my ear to the ground, and if I thought they were going to do it, to retire early, as soon as I could. You take a penalty on your pension for this, but if you have the years in, you can do it. I just looked at her. She has a husband who retired several years ago after selling a very profitable business. Her three step-sons are all grown and independent (because her husband is much older) and they didn't have college expenses for any of them anyway. They own two homes. I, on the other hand, need my salary to live on, you know? I think she was a little surprised when I told her that. I couldn't take the pension cut, and I couldn't live on just the pension for the next few years. I don't even know if I'll really be able to go in three years, as I'm hoping to. Just got to ride it out and see what happens.
You know, one of the middle schools is just down the block from me; in fact, it's the library at the end of the school that's closest to me. I could work very happily there. There's a whole contingent of high school expatriates on the staff already. Hell, if there were an opening there now, I'd probably go for it.
My amusing experience of the day was driving K over to the college she's applying to for grad school so we could pay the application fee -- wouldn't take it online -- and drop off her official undergrad transcript which she'd had sent here, sealed. There are several colleges in the area, three state schools, two of which are now universities, but this is the best one for secondary education. It's where I finished as an undergraduate and where I got a Master's degree about six years ago. It was funny to show her around the campus, to know exactly where the graduate office is, and so on. Like most campuses, it's changed tremendously since I graduated in 1975, but there are even new buildings since I finished there in 2000. Never enough parking, though. Some things never change.
And then we visited R at work, since it's close to the college, and I left K with her for the afternoon, as they are having dinner and seeing a movie together. R will have to bring her home later. And I'm all alone! I think this is a good thing.
