Morton: Ala. Teachers Should Help with Budget Cuts

Alabama schools Superintendent Joe Morton unveiled a plan to deal with budget cuts for fiscal year 2011 partly by making teachers pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.
....But the Alabama Education Association voiced less enthusiasm for other parts of his plan, which would:
-Freeze state funding to the Public Education Employees' Health Insurance Plan at the FY 2010 level and direct the plan's board to develop a program to match available funds
-Raise the amount of experience required for future education employees to retire from 25 years to 30 years
-Increase the amount education employees pay into their retirement plans from 5 percent to 6 percent
-Raise the minimum age for future participants in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP, to 30 years of service and 57 years of age
Speaking to the State Board of Education at its monthly K-12 worksession, Morton said he thinks the amendment basing funding on enrollment "is the only thing that would save K-12 education."
It "cuts right to the heart of the matter and we don't caught up in bickering," Morton told the board.....
Washington Post