There is little to suggest any course is relevant to job success (history, literature, social studies,…). The requirement for job success is communication (language proficiency, and writing), abstract reasoning (often thought to be taught via mathematics), critical reasoning (this and writing are assumed to be taught in all the other courses via seminar-like discussion of …
Public Employee Benefit Reform
During my recent re-election campaign, I made public employee benefit reform a high priority and, having been reappointed to the public service committee, I’ll be working hard on the issue. Ongoing input will be much appreciated.
Pension Issues Inventory
Section links are to a proposal for simplification of the pension system (which has been filed as House 2930). House 35 is the Governor’s pension reform proposal. Investment Risk — the possibility that earnings on invested funds will be insufficient to cover costs of future benefits. Many analysts believe that the earnings available to dollar …
Simplified Pension System Proposal
An Act to make the public pension system simpler and fairer, to provide better income security to lower wage state employees and to protect future taxpayers from unanticipated pension costs (HD 01392) Summary: This bill creates a new pension plan for new public employees designed to improve the income security of lower state employees by …
Case Law on Changes to Benefits
In discussing changes to public employee benefits, a critical question is which groups of employees they should be applied to. There is no legal or moral limit to changes for new employees. It would be both illegal and immoral in most instances to make big changes to benefits of those already retired. For the cases …
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the Brownsberger Deep Energy Retrofit (DER) project
What is the net environmental impact of a deep energy retrofit (DER)? We know that adding insulation, a more efficient furnace, modern windows and leak sealing foam to an older house will reduce the energy required to maintain a given temperature. We can calculate the cost savings and GHG reductions. But what of the environmental …