Who's driving the bus of state in Jefferson City

I was still in grade school when I asked that question, with some degree of trepidation. The actual situation was quite serious, and to this day I am surprised it never resulted in a serious accident. Teachers and retired teachers in Missouri often experience the same fear and ask the same question.

The Nevada High School football coach in the late '50s was Gene Rimmer. His family and mine were good friends and attended the same church. I lived about a block from the football field and rarely missed a practice.

I began to help the two high school student managers with their daily duties. After a time Coach Rimmer came to me and told me I could ride on the bus to the away games if my parents didn't mind. I was thrilled beyond belief.

My first trip was to Webb City. I don't know what route the buses travel now, but back then we trekked down Highway 43, which was much different then. It was narrow and had lots of curves and hills that made passing difficult, if not nearly impossible.

Early during the trip, our bus driver (who shall remain nameless) began to pass another vehicle. We were on a stretch of road, where even as a kid, I thought we should not be passing. I can still remember glancing at Coach Rimmer to see his reaction. His face had a drawn look of concern, but more importantly, his hand had gripped the bar between him and the driver to the point that his fingers were absolutely white, as if he had squeezed all the blood from them!

We made it to the game and back, but I never forgot the consternation that we all experienced when our lives were in the hands of that bus driver. As a kid I wondered why he had been chosen to be in charge of such a serious responsibility.

This is my fourth in a series of articles about education in the state of Missouri. In particular, I have tried to give you insights from a personal point of view regarding education issues across the entire state of Missouri and our own local school districts. I repeat for the record once more, that I feel our rural districts in Missouri are often treated unfairly by the legislators in Jefferson City, by passing laws designed to cure faults found in the metropolitan schools of our state.

I continue to be in total opposition to the sentiments of many, including several of our representatives in Jefferson City, regarding the quality of our local schools in our area of Missouri. I think we are doing a tremendous job at each level -- local school boards, school administrators, teachers, students, and parents involved with school programs.

In visiting with many of the teachers recently, they expressed another fear of what some new legislation might change in their retirement system. I will attempt to give you a simple overview of that system.

I am not sure how many of you realize that teachers in Missouri are not eligible for Social Security. For decades, they have run their own retirement program.

Like Social Security, the local schools and the teachers themselves contribute to their retirement program. Generally they pay more out of their regular check than the deduction most of you pay into Social Security.

They have some very different rules about this money. They can only be vested for retirement benefits after a being in the system for 5 years. They cannot receive benefits until they have reached retirement age. (For years the formula to begin retirement was your age + years of teaching must = 80 years)

One unusual aspect of their program is that if you teach for a just a few years, and then leave the system, you are allowed to apply to withdraw the portion you paid (not the money paid by the employer) into the program. If at a later date, you decide to return to teaching, they actually allow you to buy back your lost accumulations and rejoin.

The retirement system is run by an elected board of directors. They invest the money and are responsible for ensuring that the entire program remains solvent. One should note, that they have done an admirable job in this respect. Unlike those nightmare stories we hear about retirement programs that have failed, ours is flourishing.

I am not receiving retirement benefits from this program, I rolled my contributions over when I left teaching and moved into private business, so I have no skin in this game, so to speak.

There are lots of ideas being floated around the halls of government in Jefferson City, concerning this very successful retirement program. Some want to have new teachers change over to the infamous "retirement account" ideas, that were being proposed a few years back at the national level.

It makes me wonder who's driving the bus for sure in this instance. I have to ask all of you a simple question? How many of you lost huge amounts of value in your individual retirement accounts back in the crash of 2007-09?

Why would anyone with any common sense want to attach retirement benefits to such systems? The stock markets have taken almost eight years to finally get back to where they were before the crash. It is a flawed way of thinking and planning for teachers or anyone else.

Dear legislators, I see that you can be vested in just a few years into large guaranteed retirement programs for life. You also are again trying to vote in new pay increases. That's fine for you.

We simply want to know who's driving the bus for us. Teachers have been successfully running their own retirement program for years. Don't drive their bus off a cliff. They don't interfere with your system. Leave theirs alone to continue its great track record. Their bus driving history is a lot better than yours!