And the taxpayers aren’t too happy about their request.

The Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement Fund said today its “plan net assets” used for calculating future pension subsidies shrank to $43 billion at June 30, from $63 billion a year ago.

As a result, PSERS is calling for an 8.22% payroll surcharge on all school payrolls in 2010-11, to be financed by state taxpayers and local property taxpayers, up from this year’s 4.78% levy.

Here’s just a sample of the comments on the article:

Ridiculous. At least they still have retirement funds unlike most of the rest of us-and I don’t see anyone else stepping up to help replenish our 401Ks….and then to go about it by taking our money? Forget it

End all pensions….today. Re-direct into 401K’s and go with the market. In today’s world NOBODY is owed a pension. Nobody.

Deferring pension payments. Didn’t the Legislature allow the City of Philadelphia to do the same scheme earlier this year? Wait until that bill comes due. Let’s face it. We’re broke.

“Devoted Teacher” weighed in:

Teachers pay into their pensions to the tune of 7.5 percent of their paycheck – they’re not getting anything for free. Everyone hired at any job who was originally promised a pension should get one. If employers don’t want to offer new employees pensions, that’s up to them, but despite the claims of some bitter posters, everyone who was promised a pension as a result of loyal service deserves to get what they were promised. As for the posters who imagine teachers only work six hours a day (which immediately reveals an inability to tell time, as hours are generally from 8:20 to 3:09), this may be true on the planet where you reside, but in Philadelphia and, I’m sure, around the country, teachers spend extra hours lesson planning, grading papers, designing and preparing projects to the tune of what amounts to at least an extra day’s worth of work every week. On top of that, we have to pay to spend our off-time getting advanced degrees. Your ignorance speaks to what happens when people “assume.” I’m sure you know that old saying.

And got a response:

TO DEVOTED TEACHER, JUST A COUPLE THINGS: As taxpayers, even with your contribution, we still pay over 80% of your pension. In the private world we pay for our own – with minimal or zero contributions from our employer. If the market goes down, we the taxpayers do not tax ourselves to make up the difference. You can’t get fired as a teacher. By example, In Los Angeles, with 40,000 teachers, not one was fired between 1990 and 2000, I’m sure the numbers in PA are similar — are you guys really that good? All of you? How many layoffs have their been in the public teaching field in PA? You get premium health coverage, including dental, vision, disability etc. for you and your family for life paid by us stiffs.

Your work time after you subtract for lunch is about six hours per day. I don’t recall ever working less than 10 hours per day. I start before 8:20. If I ever left at 3:00, I would consider that working just about a half day. Would wonder what to do with the time. Although you work only 180 days per year compared to the 235 or so that the rest of us work, you continue to receive approximatly 17 days of sick and vacation time per year. And since you don’t need to use it, because you get every holiday and summers off, you are allowed to accrue it forever and get a nice lump sum payment when you decide to retire or leave. Can you please let us know anyone in the private sector that receives anything remotely close to that? You want to be treated like professionals such as lawyers and doctors, which is kind of ridiculous, but I don’t know any that have virtual lifetime contracts, cannot get fired, do not receive reviews of their work, take no risk, work about 1,000 hours per year, can retire at 53 years of age and receive lifetime benefits for longer than you actually worked.

PA teachers’ pension fund wants billions more from taxpayers

Male or female escapee, we’re not quite sure. Either way, a Louisiana inmate from the Grant Parish Detention Center overpowered a transport guard while on the way to Huey P. Long Hospital. A Monroe Louisiana paper warns residents to be on the lookout for:

Erica Burnaman, 32, overpowered the transport guard taking him to Huey P. Long Hospital. He escaped in the Sheriff’s Office vehicle – an unmarked gray Crown ictoria with Louisiana license plate FGX 222.

According to the Daily Star, Erica Burnaman is 32 and has “several tattoos”.

Escapee last seen driving north on Interstate 49

Another Obama “Birther” case bites the dust. This time in Tennessee.

Despite a brief media frenzy, indictments sought against President Obama, a grand jury foreman and an assistant district attorney were not returned by the Monroe County grand jury.

Walt Fitzpatrick has been seeking to indict President Barack Obama on treason charges, but the grand jury failed to grant his request. Grand jury proceedings are kept secret until indictments are handed down, and when the December session for Monroe County was released, neither the president’s name nor Gary Pettway or Jim Stutts was on the list.

Fitzpatrick is claiming President Obama is actually Barry Soeto and was not born in the United States and is therefore serving illegally.

If this had been Bush, where do you suppose MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, the New York Times, and Joe Klein would be today? Here’s the answer: On the steps of the Monroe County Tennessee court house reporting Bush had “dodged a bullet”.

No indictment for President Obama from Monroe County grand jury

Neighbors call Hitler spray-paint job “graffiti”

Anyone who’s had a dispute with their neighborhood association might relate to the homeowner who, using his right to free speech, spray-painted on his home in red, “Hitler would be a welcome neighbor here”, stop the harassment to my family”, then added, “Merry Christmas”.

According to the report, the police had been called to the home several times to investigate “ordinance” violations. The police were called back after the “rant” appeared on the home, which, according to the cops, may not be illegal.

One wonders whether one of the neighborhood “ordinances” covered “graffiti”. If not, it’s a sure bet the issue will be brought up post-haste at the next neighborhood association meeting.

Beachside dispute prompts spray-painted rant

The LufkinDailyNews.com didn’t report what time of day this incident occurred in Nacogdoches County, Texas. Whether it occurred during the day or during the night. What the paper did report: A “rampage” by a “heavily-armed man” with “two different rifles and numerous amounts of ammunition” who appeared near the property boundaries of homes in a sparsely populated area of the county, who then shot and killed four horses “at random”, then shot at neighbor’s homes before he was shot by a homeowner after trying to “force” his way inside the home.

While the wounded man was “known” to the local Sheriff’s office, the homeowner didn’t know the shooter, a man in his late 20′s, previously. The Sheriff said the homeowner was “well within his rights to take the action he did”.

Man shot by Nacogdoches County homeowner after killing four horses, firing at houses

Taiwan Celebrate Chinese Lantern Festival

What started out as a way to celebrate a wedding ended ended with several East Texas residents believing they’d witnessed ufos over the skies of Lufkin, Texas last Saturday night. The culprits: members of a wedding party who released 50 Chinese lanterns-canvas balloons that contain a lit candle which create a “luminous” light.

Mystery of the orange UFOs solved — or is it?

The Associated Press Top 25 Poll

Florida, Alabama, Texas, TCU, Cincinnati and Boise State are all undefeated and hold the first 6 spots.